Distinctly Montana Magazine

43 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m E nglish speakers the world over have a wealth of terms at their service for nat- urally running water. The words we use to refer to water flows depend on our region of habitation. Montanans, for example, rarely put the term fresh- et to a small watercourse; we will most likely come up with stream. Creek, pronounced "crick" in keeping with the regional dialect, is another favorite Western water word. Many English terms for running watercourses have never left the confines of the British Isles. Rill, runnel and rindle, perfectly serviceable to apply to any stream, have never found favor on the North American continent. The biographies of these "stream" terms reveal their deep history in English, both in the American West and across the Pond in the heartland of our language. BROOK While modern English speakers know brook as yet another word for a small flowing waterway, it derives from a very old Germanic term referring to a bog or swamp. The word first appeared in print in an English document dated 888 AD. CREEK We can trace this word all the way back to two Old Norse possibilities. It might come from krokr, the Viking word for "hook," from the way a creek bends in its flowing. The other possibility is kriki, meaning "corner, nook." Oddly, when creek appeared in English documents in the 1300s, it was as a maritime term referring to an armlet of the sea for harboring and unloading small ships. By the 1570s, creek became an "inlet or short arm of a river," and "small stream or brook" in American English by the 1600s. FRESHET Even if this term had survived the trans-Atlantic voyage, it would have died an early death in the land-locked American West. Freshet, traced to an English document dated 1576, refers to a fresh-water stream flowing into the sea. KILL Rarely used in the West, this word means "stream" or "river" to some Americans of the Mid-Atlantic states. Kill came to the New World with 17th century Dutch immigrants, who settled in what is now New York, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The Dutch kille meant "riverbed" or "water channel." The word is preserved in the place-names Fishkill, Peekskill, and Wallkill. The most famous place-name, Catskill—"Cat River"—was likely coined for the number of mountain lions there. RILL A poet's word for a small brook or rivulet, rill comes from an old Germanic term meaning "groove, furrow, running stream." Rill was cited in an English document in the mid- 1500s. A century later, poet John Milton wrote "We…fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill." Here is another useful stream-word that didn't leave the United Kingdom. RIPARIAN Those involved in stream/river ecology and water rights often use this term meaning "of a river bank." Riparian derives from the Latin ripa, "steep bank of a river." Coined the early 1800s, this adjective is seen in Thomas Jefferson's written documents. Riparian has several interesting etymological relatives: riverine, Riviera (name of a number of resorts situated near rivers), arrive ("come to the shore of a river") and rival ("one who uses the same river," a reference to age-old struggles over water rights). RUNNEL/RINDLE British and Scottish English speakers use these words for a trick- ling stream of water. In 1861, British poet Edwin Waugh wrote of a river "fed by rindles…from springs in the wood-shaded steep." Naturalist and photographer George Davies described "herons [standing] in the little runnels which trickle over the flats." Runnel and rindle share a common ancestor in an old Germanic verb meaning "to run." Useful as these two terms are, they've never been popular in North America, and somehow seem too refined for a Western sensibility. STREAM Stream and creek are often used synonymously in the Western U.S. to refer to a small watercourse. While creek contains the notion of bending and crooking, the term stream implies "flowing." It appears to derive from a prehistoric Germanic word meaning simply "to flow." This is the source of words for the same thing in German, Dutch, Swedish and Danish (Strom, stroom, ström, strøm). Traced to an English document dated 875 AD, stream has a long history in our language. SPRING Springs are sources of creeks, brooks, rills, streams, kills, runnels and rindles throughout the English-speaking world. The word spring in Old English times (ca. 400s – 1100s) denoted a place where water "springs" from the ground. The water-word and the season-word are very closely related. The season name spring is an abbreviated form of the longer name spring-of-the-leaf, denoting a time when leaves seem to spring to full size overnight. This word can be traced to Indo-European, a prehistoric language from which many of our well-established English words derive. W I L D W E S T W O R D S W I L D W E S T W O R D S by CHRYSTI THE WORDSMITH A CRICK BY ANY OTHER NAME www.TracysDiner.com (406) 315.3585 B E S T O F M O N TA N A B M D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A ' S 2023 w w w . s t r e e t b u r g e r s . n e t 4 0 6 . 3 1 5 . 8 7 7 8 N OM I N AT E U S ! N OM I N AT E U S !

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