Talk:sea puss

RFV discussion: November 2015–February 2016
RFV of the two senses added in [//en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=sea_puss&type=revision&diff=25025303&oldid=25024810 diff], "longshore current" and "submerged channel through a bar caused naturally by a longshore current". This is an interesting case, because many general references say "sea-puss" means "seaward current", while many special shore-protection references say it means "longshore current": every one of the uses I've seen explicitly refers to it as a seaward current or rip current, with only one possible exception. Is the "longshore current" perhaps an error or wishful thinking (desire for a term) on the part of one shore-protection reference which was propagated to the others? Likewise, the uses I've seen only support the other "channel" sense. I'm not sure how a longshore current would generate a cut through a sandbar, anyway. - -sche (discuss) 08:43, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * After looking at the glossary linked to, I think the added sense is really three:
 * A dangerous longshore current
 * A rip current caused by return flow
 * The submerged channel or inlet through a bar caused by those currents.
 * The first new sense is the only one of the three having no overlap with the two original ones. The second is identical with the first sense in the entry, and the third is very similar to the second sense in the entry. Since "currents" is plural, it looks like we can attribute the cutting through of the sandbar to the rip current as well as to the longshore current (or, I would argue, instead of the longshore current). That means the only difference between the second original sense and the third new one is who or what is said to have cut the channel. What it all boils down to is a minor variation in the channel sense and the longshore-current sense being the only thing we would need to verify. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:49, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Excellent analysis. I've tweaked the "channel" sense to say "often deliberately", which allows for natural formation, and removed the duplicate "rip current" sense. - -sche (discuss) 04:53, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * RFV-failed. I've expanded the usage note to cover the difference in how the term is actually used (denoting a seaward current) vs how some reference works describe it (as a longshore current). - -sche (discuss) 05:01, 2 February 2016 (UTC)