Creek or stream or ?????

[Dave Hanny]

Here in Michigan we catch brook trout out of trout streams. You rarely if ever here the term brook, only creek or stream.  Creek, or crick, for the smallest streams, those typically you could jump across.  Streams are bigger, for the most part can be waded, then rivers.

Then western PA and Michigan agree! 
Western PA and central PA have a good amount more hills than I think Michigan does, so I imagine one could stumble across a brook once in a while in PA... but the term is rarely heard there, too.

We have water 'spring'ing up from the sides of hills, too, but no-one asked about springs.

Now how many of you all grew up with jagger bushes (thorns) and called people you thought were idiots "Jag-Offs"?  (hope that term doesn't offend anyone too much here...)

[Jeff]

We call thorn trees and bushes Wait-a-minutes.  Cause that is what you have to tell the guy in front as you try to get through them.

[Dave Hanny]

 :D

[rpg52]

On the West Coast (CA), we have creeks and streams (sometimes seasonal creeks if they dry up) and rivers.  Seems like there aren't any brooks, but we do have sloughs (murky, slow water, generally occupied with cattails or other vegetation).
Ray

[JimMartin9999]

Add lick and kill to your list of running waters.

The stream on my land in central NY was named lick.  Someone mistakenly called it  Lick Creek and that is now on the maps.  Schuylkill River in PA and Deerkill NY are examples for kill.

[splitter]

If there's branch lettuce growing there its a "branch". At least thats what we say in the mountains. Splitter

[Don_Papenburg]

A crick or creek can also be a drink .

[Jeff]

A crick or creek can also be a drink .

Yea, that's what I thought one miserably hot day while running skidder on the Capert Ranch in clare county.  I had my eye on the little crick that was running swiftly over a gravel bottom.   I got out of the skidder and walked down to the creek, I snapped the innards out of my hard hat, then rinsed the hat out real good, then scooped up a nice hat full of clean cold water and took a long satisfying drink. I dumped the rest of the water out and gave a long sigh of satisfaction JUST the instant before I looked up the creek and saw the dead bloated sheep laying in the middle.

[WH_Conley]

Just think, if you had of looked up sooner, you would have been thirsty.

[DanG]

 :D :D :D :D  There just ain't no substitute for being careful, is there?

First time I heard the term "wait-a-minute" was in Basic Training back in 1967.  We were shown a vine with some wicked thorns on it, and were told that it was "Wait-a-minute Vine".  I had seen this stuff all my life, but never had a name for it, so that's what I called it from then on.  Just recently, while looking up something from the "Tree and Plant ID" board, I ran across it.  It is called Greenbriar.  It is so obnoxious that GM named one of the worst vehicles they ever made after it! : :D :D :D  It is coming up rampantly around here right now.  The stuff grows several feet per day, and can reach the top of a pretty good tree in a couple of weeks.

To me, a stream is a generic term that covers them all, from the smallest branch to the biggest river, but that is just my connotation of the term.  A lick is just a salt deposit where animals come to lick the ground for salt.  I always figured that "Lick Creek" was just a stream that had a salt lick.  I look at maps quite a bit, and notice that there are a lot of "Lick Creeks".  A slough is a very specific thing, officially.  It is an area beside a stream that gathers water after a flood.  In this flat country around here, it is common for there to be two bridges over a river, one for the river, and one for the slough.

[Don_Papenburg]

Jeff , you are safe if it is bloated that means all the orfices that emit nasties are all swelled shut . Now if you looked up and it was just finnished deflating that would be a problem .   but you would have smetl it before you got the innerds outa your hard hat.

[Ironmower]

Don't remember where I heard it. It was said that flowin water, over rocks, will "purify" the water in 50 ft (don't remember exact distance, likely further)
     I personally ain't gonna try it, but it would be an interesting test.

   Test the water with contaminents ( like where the sheep is layin), go down stream, and check again.

[Dave Hanny]

Don't remember where I heard it. It was said that flowin water, over rocks, will "purify" the water in 50 ft (don't remember exact distance, likely further)
     I personally ain't gonna try it, but it would be an interesting test.

   Test the water with contaminents ( like where the sheep is layin), go down stream, and check again.

I don't know - My buddy tells a story of a pristine stream & waterfall system he found that he later found out was the equivalent of something like hydrochloric acid.  To look at it no-one would know, but... lol.