Talk:Slough (wetland)

I was raised in Englandduring the 40s and we referred to slough as " sluff" as in tough. David bracey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David bracey (talk • contribs) 13:19, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Old discussions

Currently the article says "In the UK, pronounced to rhyme with bough"; however, I (an American) don't know how that word is pronounced, either. Does it rhyme with "toe" or with "cow"? It would be even more helpful if someone could use pronounciation markup for the article. --LostLeviathan 17:06, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's Slough to rhyme with cow. I'll revisit shortly. Presumably, Americans call them branches rather than boughs ? Thanks, Ian Cairns 18:31, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about in the US, but in Canada it decidedly does NOT rhyme with cow; the rhyme would be with "do" or "coup" or "through".....Skookum1 (talk) 16:00, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Summary: + defs, cit, so cl, rephrased; see Talk.
Explication: Added definitions, citations. See also Talk:Seattle, Citing sources.

Word definitions in the public domain and under copyright have been compared so that article section content is in compliance with copyright (copyrighted content not used). Definitions are complete as of 21 April 2006.

A References section, which contains only citations, helps readers to see at a glance the quality of the references used. (WP: Citing sources # "References" section in addition to "Notes")

See WP:CITE. "Retrieved [date]", since on-line reference links can break, (per Embedded links).

In the citation or bibliography, reducing size of the all caps would be nice.

--GoDot 16:14, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Trees in sloughs

In the article it says that the western sloughs have no native trees, but I live in California, and the sloughs around here have willows and cottonwoods, and sometimes oak. BTW, we in the central valley pronounce it slew.

There is a slough here in western Montana that doesn't fit any of those definitions, precisely. Dlabtot (talk) 10:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the article wants to refer to trees that grow in the slough, such that the slough is populated by trees within it. There might be many trees that encroach the edge and in wetter years get a little flooded, but not like the semitropical mangrove swamps. Probably the article needs to be clearer. Fremte (talk) 20:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

US pronunciation

The article only mentions the (SAMPA) /slu:/ (homophone of slew) pronunciation in the US. However, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary seems to indicate that /slaU/ (rhymes with cow) is also present in the US. The American Heritage Dictionary also mentions this pronunciation without marking it as British (note that AHD doesn't even mention the British pronunciations of schedule & lieutenant). Jimp 15:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Dictionary definitions

this article is about slough (wetland). the definitions need to be placed elsewhere Anlace 20:04, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

In the U.S., the word has usage that is in relative abandon with regard to meaning.

In the U.S., "features that seem to derive from local experience" have been changing in recent decades. "Slough has [...] connotations that are inappropriate to increasingly-recognized value of natural areas [i.e. such as wetlands]. GCIDE Dictionary meanings" provide explanation. Plese see article for more. Words frame perceptions (cf. Eric Blair). The frames about natural environments change, but the roots and meanings of the words from Europe remain. (This is dramatically true in the U.S. over the last century about meanings and connotations of wilderness and all of American genus Canis but Canis lupus familiaris, more recently similarly of wetlands, albeit less dramatically.) That awareness about words used can be very useful in understanding. --GoDot 08:31, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with User:Anlace and remove that content - we shouldn't have lists of homonyms in an encyclopedia, and in this case the meanings to do with discarding and skin are from a totally different and rarely-used word pronounced as "sluff", making the case for it weak. Dryman 00:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

No, this article won't do as it is. At present it is a single article about several different things that happen to share a name – each of those things is covered (at least to some extent) by other articles. Effectively the current article is therefore about the name itself, and as we all know, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. All these meanings need to be split out to other articles where possible. I suspect that this will leave only dab material, which can be added to Slough (disambiguation). However, if there really is anything that can only be called a slough, that should stay here, or if more than one thing, it should be split into different articles – "Slough (sea inlet)", "Slough (pond)" or whatever. Richard New Forest (talk) 10:22, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

No comments after two months. I propose to delete the article and replace it with a dab page pointing to the various things called "slough". Any comments before I do that? Richard New Forest (talk) 21:09, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Really truly no more comments...? Richard New Forest (talk) 17:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No comments after another couple of months, so done as per my first proposal, adding the material to Slough (disambiguation) and redirecting this page there. Richard New Forest (talk) 11:20, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Something is not right about this conversion to a redirect to a dab: sloigh (wetland) is NOT about Slough railway station or people named Slough. Robots solving the redirect made things worse, by replacing links to this definition page with links to a dab page. While this article needs work, it is still better than a redirect. --Qyd (talk) 23:13, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Above change was just reverted wholesale to the previous article without prior discussion (as a "minor edit"...). I've restored the dab for the moment, pending discussion: can we leave it as it is please until we have come to a conclusion?

I'd like to hear what arguments there might be for "the article is still better than a redirect", and what is the "something" that's not right about a dab? Before returning this page to an article, the points made above do need to be answered – perhaps there are excellent counter-arguments, but we haven't heard them yet. Richard New Forest (talk) 23:42, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

"Slough (wetland)" is not about people named Slough. It is about a landform. The fact that in different regions of the English speaking world it has slightly different meaning does not make it anything else but a landform, a very specific one. It is different than a pond or lake, and different than a marsh or swamp (it's somewhat in between), and should have its own article. --Qyd (talk) 03:28, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately "Slough (wetland)" is not about "a landform", let alone "a very specific one". It, or rather they, are several very different landforms, or waterforms or whatever you want to call them (all this is discussed above...).

Therefore there seems to be no doubt that a dab is needed to cover the various meanings of wetland sloughs. One possiblity would be to have a special dab page here just for the wetland meanings of "slough", and this would of course separate them from the town etc. The trouble with this is that there is already a dab for other meanings of "slough", and so we'd end up with two dabs for the same word. How could we argue against merging two such similar articles?

If we do stick with one dab we do need to amend the incoming links. Richard New Forest (talk) 11:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Just wishing to note that the "wetland" disambiguation is not accurate re waterbodies...the Pacific Northwest & BC usage is not limited to river deltas and refers (in BC) mostly to slow-moving side channels of rivers (usually but not always the Fraser). A "wetland" in CAnadian usage more means swampy ground, a marsh etc, and while these are commonly along teh banks of a slough, they are not the meaning of "slough" in that context; from what I understand such slow-moving channels elsewhere may be styled "creeks"; there is also nothing in the usage to imply "tidal" or "washed by the tides"...as a matter of fact a salt marsh in the region is sometimes called a "saltchuck" (saltwater) though that can also mean seawater-bodies in general (saltchuck in that context is usually Washington-Oregon, whereas in BC it doesn't have the salt marsh meaning).. Also on whichever page it is, trhe usage meaning "to moult" should have IPA attached to distinguish its pronunciation, no?Skookum1 (talk) 15:50, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

All "definitions" have something in common, the slough as a landform between lake and swamp. It is a bit of a stretch to call it an article about different things with the same name. The article, flawed as it was, was detailing the nuances of the term in various geographic locales. It served a purpose in that form. Being just a redirect to a dab led to shallow lakes categorized as river deltas for example (due to the well meant efforts of the people working on Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links). Agree with wetland being a less than perfect dab term. Would you have a better suggestion? How about Slough (landform)? --Qyd (talk) 15:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Is a lake a landform? Or a waterbody? But given the variable meaning of swamp/marsh "landform" describes that; but to me not one of the Fraser's sloughs....how about slough (geography), which is as I recall what's used for sound (geography).....Skookum1 (talk) 16:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Waterbodies are landforms (or physical features); ex: Category:Landforms of British Columbia includes Category:Lakes of British Columbia as well as bays, fjords, waterfalls, etc. see alos list of landforms. --Qyd (talk) 22:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

If a wetland slough really is one thing, let's see a definition for it that includes all the various types, but excludes other kinds of wetland. I don't see how you can do it, but I'm more than ready to be proved wrong. Richard New Forest (talk) 23:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

"but excludes other types of wetland" might be a tall order, given the variability of English idiom overall....what might be called a marsh in BC would seem to be called a slough elsewhere....I just searched BCGNIS for "% slough" and got 93 results, though a couple are Slough Mountain and Sloughgrass Prairie and the like.....most appear to be Fraser or other coastal sloughs, which in my experience will be slow-moving side waters of other waterbodies/streams - "backwaters" or side channels in most cases - but some are in the Peace Country and may have a more Prairie-type meaning, ditto those in the Okanagan; a few that once existed on the Columbia are now rescinded from being inundated by reservoirs....but the meaning is very different from what it appears to be in California....and I'll check with a few WA and OR editors about what "slough" means in their states; I suspect those in the Puget Sound area are similar to those on teh Lower Fraser as word-meanings are pretty constant across the border in that area....Skookum1 (talk) 01:30, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

BCGNIS may have an area where its terminologies are defined, if I find it I'll be back with their definition....but NB the Canadian Geographic Names Database may maintain a different definition.....similarly "gulch" can have a different meaning in different areas, even within BC (sometime quite a while ago someone in wikispace did a real interesting map comparing the use of "gulch" and "hollow" across North American geography....).Skookum1 (talk) 01:34, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

For what it is worth, here is my old map showing GNIS "streams" named "slough"--the dots placed at the stream mouths (the gulch and hollow map is on flickr nearby somewhere). I'd have to look into it more, but it looks to me like there are numerous non-delta sloughs out there. Note these are only features of GNIS type "stream", not "swamp" etc. Looking at Wisconsin, there seems to be a number of sloughs that are essentially side channels of rivers, especially the Mississippi River. For example, U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: State Line Slough. Better, perhaps, is U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Big Slough, which looks like a regular creek on the satellite and topo map links. Anyway, what would this page need to be useful for people wanting to understand the different landform/geographical meanings of the word? Maybe I could dig up some sources. I know I've often been confused by the word's use for wetlands and streams. Pfly (talk) 03:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

(also, just to note, I completely understand Richard New Forest's directing this page. It looks like he asked, repeatedly for comments, and none came. Sometimes it takes action to rouse discussion!) Pfly (talk) 03:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way, I stumbled over here via a series of edits to Humboldt Bay. The long-standing phrase, Humboldt Bay and its tidal sloughs.. had been edited, in light of the redirect here, to Humboldt Bay and its tidal sloughs.., which an editor much interested in the Humboldt Bay area reverted with the edit summary, "ONLY ONE of many is technically a river delta--and a small one at that". I'm am doubtful about this editor knowing that Slough (wetland) had become a redirect. But in any case, none of the definitions offered on the disambig page seem to be appropriate for most of the "tidal sloughs" of Humboldt Bay: Slough, a muddy marsh (British Isles) [no]; Slough, a swamp or shallow lake system with trees (eastern and southeastern United States) [no]; Slough, a secondary channel of a river delta, without trees (west coast of North America) [mostly no]; and Slough, a pond, often alkaline (prairies of North America) [no]. So it looks like the Humboldt Bay user wants to continue to use the Slough (wetland) link without, apparently, realizing it has become a redirect to a series of choices, none of which are appropriate.

Perhaps what would be needed to make this page useful is an encyclopedic overview of how the term meaning different things in different places and some info on how that came to be the case--the evolving meaning of the term as it was reused in different environments. Maybe something closer to the Coulee page--although that one could use some improvement too. My very quick first foray into source-searching reveals a surprising number of lawsuits, in which the definition of "slough" came under consideration for one reason or another--mostly in early California apparently. It seems that in terms of water rights much hinged on whether a feature named slough was in fact a natural water-course or whether it was a mere wetland or artificial construction. Perhaps somewhere there is a source that actually explores these aspects of the history of landform nomenclature. ..maybe. Pfly (talk) 04:09, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Yet another comment (sorry for so many rapid fire), in response to an earlier comment by Richard New Forest, One possiblity would be to have a special dab page here just for the wetland meanings of "slough": This might work, but my sense is that the various meanings are not well delineated and there is a great deal of mushiness and cross-over among them. Just browsing maps of sloughful areas is seems clear that there is no fine line between "wetlands associated with a nearby river's floodplain that happen to have a channel draining them, called a slough" and "sluggish side channels of a river that split off and rejoin in the style of a braided river. It might be hard--perhaps requiring original research, to decide which slough is of which type. There are a number of other, similarly vague "in between" usages. It looks to me like the term has evolved over time to cover a wide range of landforms, but without necessarily displaying bright lines with which one can easily categorize the usages. Pfly (talk) 04:23, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, all that illustrates the problem quite well. If there are sloughs which are not dealt with well by the dab page, then why not just add more appropriate links? As for the Coulee page, that seems almost as bad a case of a dictionary definition as this one was. Richard New Forest (talk) 21:07, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Heh, well, okay. I added a couple lines to the disambig page. I don't really have it in me to work on a page about sloughs. Pfly (talk) 03:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Article vs. redirect to disambiguation page?

I don't know if this is beating a dead horse, but after reading this debate on an article vs. redirect, it seems to me that an article which can be improved is better than a disambig page that gives non-referenced definitions. If there are provincial definitions, then the article can address these, and give the relevant meanings, and the reader can consider the sources. I found one source, per the US gov't, for slough as a non-tidal marsh[1]. It seems to me that a page with lots of information (some bad, some good) is better than a disambiguation page that doesn't provide references. So I propose to reintroduce the page instead of redirect slough (wetland) Rhetth (talk) 20:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Not quite sure what you're suggesting... A page with lots of information is good; good information is also good, but bad information is bad and is not what WP is about. The link you give is for just one of the North American definitions, and ignores the various others; it is also a thing which is already covered elsewhere in WP, and we cannot have duplicate articles. If we can have a single page about a single thing called "slough (wetland)", fine, but it looks to me as if you're proposing a page about multiple definitions of a word, and that belongs in Wiktionary. (Also, references do not really belong on a dab: if needed, they ought to be in the pages to which the dab points.)

What would your Slough (wetland) page cover, and how would it differ from Wikt:slough#Etymology 2? Richard New Forest (talk) 22:08, 14 August 2010 (UTC)