In East Texas "slough" rhymes with stew. It is a "U" in the bank of a lake where a creek runs in.

Robert

swale - a relatively small siightly swampy area, with no trees or bushes, or grass, usually various reeds, and in some instances wild cranberries. I actually stepped on tail feathers of a hen pheasant in one. When she squawked it really startled me. We were there to pick the cranberries.

Crick / creek.

A creek is a very small river. You usually use crick instead of creek in the expression "up the crick without a paddle" meaning your are in deep doo-doo with no way out.

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On an other note Shona brought up sloe gin. I've heard of that but there is one type of gin I don't know the English term for.

Bols is Gros gin (Big gin) in French. Do you know what that type of gin is called?

swale - a relatively small siightly swampy area

A definition more common here, where our land is very flat and hence of very poor drainage, is the man-made swale for drainage purposes. Per bartleby:

swale 3. A shallow troughlike depression that carries water mainly during rainstorms or snow melts.

Keiva: you are unwelcome in AWADtalk.

Of troy, you questioned:

"a WW, a run is a branch of a creek? Smaller? or bigger? "

I'd say a creek, run, and branch could all be the same size, from small to large, around Dinwiddie. Also, rills would be the same.

However, I would say that creeks and runs would go from small-sized to very large, whereas a branches and rills would tend to remain on the small to medium size.

I've seen very narrow creeks, for instance. And Rocky Run isn't very large at all in places. Rocky Run, everybody around here would agree, is a creek. People would speak of branches off the creek, say, "Oh, that branch off Rocky Run lies on his back fifty." But the same branch could be referred to, by the farmer on whose land it lies, as "the creek out back."

Then there are springs, little bits of streams around here. We had once here a little spring that my dad had dammed up, and now there's a four and a half acre pond out back fed by the spring. But nobody would say a creek, branch, or run fills the pond.

There are long histories of families who came to settle this place, mostly Scots, English, and Irish. I suppose each group brought its names for creeks and that's why we have such a variety of reference here.

Nobody here, by the way, says, "crick" for "creek" unless for humorous purposes.

Boat regards,
WordWater

I'd say a creek, run, and branch could all be the same size, from small to large, around Dinwiddie. Also, rills would be the same. However, I would say that creeks and runs would go from small-sized to very large, whereas a branches and rills would tend to remain on the small to medium size.

bartleby indicates regional variations in usage in the eastern US: Terms for "a small, fast-flowing stream" vary throughout the eastern United States especially. Speakers in the eastern part of the Lower North (including Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and southern Pennsylvania) use the word run. Speakers in the Hudson Valley and Catskills, the Dutch settlement areas of New York State, may call such a stream a kill. Brook has come to be used throughout the Northeast. Southerners refer to a branch, and throughout the northern United States the term is crick, a variant of creek.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/59/R0345900.html, at end

Around here, branch refers not to the size of a stream but to its configuration. When a stream (whether a river or a creek) splits into two roughly-equal sub-streams as one travels upstream, each is called a branch. Thus, one has the north and south branches of the Chicago River, and similarly, the north and soutch pranches of many creeks.

When a brach similarly splits, each part (or the smaller part) is called a fork.

I'd think a river is distinguished from all of these term in that it must be big enough to navigate, at least in a substanital part of its length of a substantial part of the year. But I can't find any source to support that distinction.

Dear Keiva: You are completely unwelcome in AWADtalk. You are able
to be here only because you were willing to use contemptible means
of have a well justified ban on you removed.

here's a tangent for crick:
when one gets a "crick" in the neck...

from MW:

In reply to:

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Main Entry: 1crick
Pronunciation: 'krik
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English cryk
Date: 15th century
: a painful spasmodic condition of muscles (as of the neck or back)

Main Entry: 2crick
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1884
1 : to cause a crick in (as the neck)
2 : to turn or twist (as the head) especially into a strained position

and for creek:
Main Entry: creek
Pronunciation: 'krEk, 'krik
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English crike, creke, from Old Norse -kriki bend
Date: 13th century
1 chiefly British : a small inlet or bay narrower and extending farther inland than a cove
2 : a natural stream of water normally smaller than and often tributary to a river
3 archaic : a narrow or winding passage
- up the creek : in a difficult or perplexing situation

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one type of gin I don't know the English term for.

Bols is Gros gin (Big gin) in French. Do you know what that type of gin is called?

My bartenders' book does not list gros gin, but an online reference I found suggests that it is singularly aptly named:

“In fact, the local rum here is not available in North America. We discovered that the reason for this is because the rum here is VERY bad!!! After distilling the cane, filtering and redistilling it, the Guadelopueans and Martiniquean rum people force goats with mouthfuls of cud to spit into the mixture to give each and every drop of rum a heavy grassy flavor. The mixture is then strained through the old socks of migrant Haitian workers and bottled. The key word on the bottle to let you know that a perfectly good rum has been strained through a sock and had goat cud added is "Agricole". So a bottle with the words "Rhum Agricole" on the label is not a rum to smuggle home next time you visit. It is not even as drinkable as "Gros Gin" a Gin with Cow cud added and popular in Holland and Quebec.“

http://
http://www.usual-suspects-sailing.com/exp-rummer-stone.htm

My bartenders' book explains that gin is a corruption of the Dutch for juniper - jenever - or from the French - genievre. It was first made by a Dutch physician in the 17th century, as a remedy for kidney complaints. When William III became King of England, he imposed excise duties on French wines, and gin became popular, leading to phrases such as "dutch courage," "Mother's Ruin" (based on the belief that gin induced abortions), and "Gin Lane".

The usual dry gin is made by infusing juniper and other flavorings (possibly including fennel, calmus root, angelica root, orris root, almond, cardamom, cassia, ginger, cinnamon, licorice, caraway seeds, orange peel or lemon peel) into a neutral grain spirit made primarily from corn and malted barley.

Dutch gin, also called Holland's gin or Genever gin, is made by infusing juniper and other botanicals into malt wine. The two main types of Dutch gin are oude and jonge; old and young.

Old Tom is a sweet gin made in England, and is perhaps the origination of the Tom Collins.

Plymouth gin is unsweetened, and is the traditional gin of the British Navy.

Dear Sparteye: "Gros gin" is gross indeed.

AAah HA! That explains why I cannot stand gin :
The usual dry gin is made by infusing juniper and other flavorings ...

I am allergic to juniper. Just walking by a planting makes me sneeze madly and my eyes water.
Just have to stick to Irish and Scotch

Shed a tear for your deprived High Priestess
(snigger snigger)

That explains why I cannot stand gin

Me neither, Wise One. But it's more the fact that it's the one spirit that doesn't make me happy.

Scotch is guaranteed good times; vodka is nice and reliable, but got to be the syrupy stuff (and as I've said loads of times, wisniowka/cherry vodka is amongst my favourite drinks ever); brandy is fun; tequila is lively and a bit insane. But gin just makes me miserable.

Why bother?!