|
|
 #2 (permalink) Sat Jul 05, 2008 19:27 pm 'Cove' vs 'Bay' |
|
|
Hah, I think this could be another beach vs. shore debate! 
For the most part, yes, I think the two are interchangeable. I believe the actual differences have to do with size, with a cove being slightly smaller and more secluded than a bay, but the definitions are certainly very loose, and not worth debating.
In the poem you quote, "Daffodils", by William Wordsworth (what a great name for a poet, no?!) the daffodils are along the bay of the lake.
The lake he's referring to apparently has a bay on it.
A bay or cove is just a part of a body of water that sort of sticks off to the side of the main body of water.
Here's an map showing several bays and coves of different sizes. I just randomly chose this one, but keep in mind a bay or cove doesn't have to be off of the ocean. Any body of water large enough to have recessed areas can have bays and coves. I just had problems finding a good picture of a lake bay on the Internet.
_________________
Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
***
Did you hear they arrested the Energizer Bunny on battery charges?
*** |
|
 Skrej
I'm here quite often ;-)
Joined: 03 Jul 2008
Posts: 863
Location: Not-quite exact central USA
|
|
| #3 (permalink) Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:48 pm 'Cove' vs 'Bay' |
|
|
| My dictionary calls a cove "a small sheltered bay". I always think of a cove as being similar to a cave, while a bay is open. |
|
Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 5332
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
|
 |
| #4 (permalink) Sun Jul 06, 2008 13:16 pm 'Cove' vs 'Bay' |
|
|
A passage from Wordsworth's sister's journal (Thurs April 15th, 1802) may be of interest here:
| Dorothy Wordsworth wrote: |
The wind seized our breath the Lake was rough. There was a Boat by itself floating in the middle of the Bay below Water Millock. We rested again in the Water Millock Lane. The hawthorns are black and green, the birches here and there greenish but there is yet more of purple to be seen on the Twigs. We got over into a field to avoid some cows—people working, a few primroses by the roadside, woodsorrel flower, the anemone, scentless violets, strawberries, and that starry yellow flower which Mrs C. calls pilewort.
When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them.
There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The Bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances and in the middle of the water like the sea.
|
"Pilewort" was apparently Wordsworth's favourite flower (Ranunculus ficaria, lesser celandine); through a misunderstanding, the unrelated greater celandine (Chelidonium majus) is depicted on his tombstone.
MrP |
|
MrPedantic
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 13 Oct 2006
Posts: 1319
Location: Southern England
|
|
| #5 (permalink) Sun Jul 06, 2008 13:45 pm 'Cove' vs 'Bay' |
|
|
| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| "a small sheltered bay" |
That's also the way I think of a cove.
. |
|
Yankee
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 16 Apr 2006
Posts: 8265
Location: USA
|
|
|
| "at that place" vs "in that place" | A beauty (full) mind. |
