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Science Memes @mander.xyz

fossilesque @mander.xyz

1y ago

Know the difference!!!

58 comments

By that definition could you have a swamp bog, a swamp fen, a marsh bog, and a marsh fen?
- Wildlife biologist here, Absolutely.
  Oddly enough I usually see/write it fen/bog marsh. There are tons of other qualifiers too, like salt marsh, tidal marsh and such.
  The same applies for all 4 examples if it's needed. Salt swamps and fresh water swamps and such.
  
  I'll have a tidal salt fen marsh, with extra tide.
  
  Oddly enough I usually see/write it fen/bog marsh.
  I was going to ask about the order of adjectives, actually, since I find esoteric grammar rules oddly interesting and have been on a bit of a "adjectives hierarchy" kick lately.
  
  Are any of the combinations more prevalent than others? E.g. do bogs/fens encourage or discourage trees from growing?
  
  I find this definition a lot more compelling than the one in the meme.
  In other words it's more to do with geology and how the wetland has formed from groundwater vs water flow, than it is to do with characteristics like ph and trees - those things sort of proceed from the basic structure.
- I'm also curious. Can't find a way to subscribe to a thread, so I'm leaving a comment to check back later
- That's mind bog-gling
  
  I just think it's fenny

As non-native english speaking person that's highly fascinating.
- I think this is more to do with scientists' definitions than English in general. See also: what is and isn't a nut, what is and isn't a vegetable, is there such thing as a fish.

How am I supposed to estimate the pH value of a given wetland area without specialised equipment?
- Take a sip. Did you trip balls? Acid.
  Take a red wire, black wire, and a clock. Can you power the clock? Alkaline.
  Duh.
- Determine whether it's a swamp or a marsh.
  Tell someone else you did your part, now it's their turn.
- Just call it something online, if people don't immediately pop out of nowhere to correct you, then you're probably right.
- What, you don't carry pH test strips around as a matter of routine? /s
- Lick it. Just a little bit. Just a little snaky lick...
- Learn botany. You can tell the approximate pH from the species of plants growing there.
  
  Neat! Didn't know that.
- Maybe you can find some red cabbage growing nearby?

So what do you call a wetland that has a neutral pH and mixed vegitation?
- Just from what I found, swamps are wetlands with woody vegetation being what DOMINATLY inhibits it. So if it's mixed, find out what there is more of. If it's 50/50, I guess the universe collapses.
  And a wetland with a neutral ph is just called a neutral wetland.
- Everything is a wetland.

I never knew the fen/bog part! The only reason I knew swamps from marshes is from labeling them in OpenStreetMap

It feels so liberating to hear it just said out loud

Help, I'm stuck in a wetland, but I didn't bring my litmus test!
- Sorry, I'm looking for you in the bog but you're not there

I’ve never heard of a Fen before
- Fen the wetland type or fen the plural of (sci fi/fantasy) fan? Or had you heard of neither?
  
  Sounds like it could be the name of a Hobbit. But no, never heard the word used before. I’m from Georgia and live in Virginia. Never been to a mountain wetland or to middle earth
- That's cuz ya basic like one :)
- You are not reading enough fantasy books, then.
  
  That’s because the old Something Awful forums ruined fantasy books back for me in the early 2000’s when the big series was ASOIAF. Going from GRRM to Sanderson, Hobbs, Abercrombie etc… just doesn’t hit the same. It’s like going from crack to whippets.

I forgot already before I started writing this comment

So, it would be a swampy bog and a marshy fen, but not a boggy swamp or a fenny marsh?

PREACH! MUTHAFUKA!!!
- LOUDER, FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BOG!

How does this make you feel:
https://www.ywt.org.uk/nature-reserves/fen-bog-nature-reserve
- Pretty hecking neutral

Huh, TIL

And me still not giving a Fuck...

Dale/glen???

i love when scientists take a swamp of arbitrary language terms and decide to impose some arbitrary specific meanings on them for purposes of their specific discipline and then convince people who don't really get how language works (i.e. most people) that the definitions are authoritative. it's fun to watch the cognitive dissonance when this collides with actual usage and people get all angry and righteous.

Thanks crossword puzzles!
These come up pretty often for some reason.
- Especially Fen!
  
  Epee, Oreo, era, isle, ore... Lol

I fucking hate Tumblr users

Further evidence that the Marshbadge and the Soulbadge were accidentally switched.

I went backpacking through a bog once. It was quite the experience. It felt so foreign, almost like being in a fantasy world. I have pictures from that trip, and 80% of them are from the bog. LOL

So is the pond in my yard that I created 25 years ago, but then neglected for most of the last 10 years a swamp or a marsh?
There's not a lot of woody crap growing in it, but there is a tree that sprouted at one end that I've been trying to kill.

58 comments