why is the word "shore" poetic when "beach" isn't?

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― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:25 (twenty-two years ago)

i know they're not interchangeable

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:26 (twenty-two years ago)

"Beach" is punk, "shore" is shoegazer.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Or, rather, "beach" has more hard-ish consonants, whereas "shore" with its shhh and orrr sounds like waves crashing into the sand, very onomatopoetic.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:31 (twenty-two years ago)

This probably doesn't answer your question but...

shore - lonely, mysterious ('lee shore'), has more of an implied relationship with the sea (although it is used for lakes as well and replaces beach in that usage).

beach - place where crowds go to sunbathe and eat ice cream, has less of an implied relationship with the sea (more of a physical description of the end of the land).

― David (David), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I think beach is a lovely word. And it is onomatopaeic too - like the crunch/squeak of pebbles or the suction of the sea over the stones.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:36 (twenty-two years ago)

no, that's good david: shore is for some reason implicitly lonelier than beach, isn't it?

(sorry michael: i think the difference does reside in this case in associations rather than the effects of the sounds)

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:37 (twenty-two years ago)

like the crunch/squeak of pebbles or the suction of the sea over the stones.

That's partly what I meant about it being connected with the land. Presumably geologists would talk about the physical composition of a beach, whereas shore is more vague.

― David (David), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:43 (twenty-two years ago)

land as an association is less poetic maybe than sea bcz it's less concrete/specific - but "beach" *is* concrete-specific

maybe it's bcz it rhymes with "the hills of the chankley-bore"

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:47 (twenty-two years ago)

You mean shore=end of the sea and beach=end of the land: fair enough, but this doesn't (to me) explain why 'shore' is more 'poetic' than 'beach' -- surely it just tells us that you (Mark and David) have more 'poetic' associations with the 'end of the sea' than with 'the end of the land'.

(I don't think either word is more poetic than the other, at least not on its own, but then I'm in a curmudgeonly mood and likely to be pedantic or wilfully contradictory today, so please ignore me.)

― alext (alext), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:50 (twenty-two years ago)

is it lonelier? the shore could imply a busy freeway next to the sea, but where there is no beach. beach can be all poetic and lonely like newfoundland or somewhere. it is only because beach has the hot climate association sometimes?

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:53 (twenty-two years ago)

implicitly lonelier

The sea is one of the most common metaphors for loneliness and 'shore' feeds off that by association, I suppose.

maybe it's bcz it rhymes with "the hills of the chankley-bore"

shore sounds 'old fashioned' - sounds more 'poetic'.

― David (David), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:55 (twenty-two years ago)

"poetic" as a word is probably inevitably fairly skewed towards particular eras and historical species of "poeticity" (heh), eg quasi-Romantic/Gothic moodlets etc, which anything sea-linked wd surely win hands down... (if beach = "end of the crags" or "viewpoint over the cataract" then surely *it* wd beat "shore"

obviously alext is correct in that any word can be made poetic, but this omni-relevance drains it of useable meaning

i just remembered this:
"this is the voice of the sand/there is far more sea than land"

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:56 (twenty-two years ago)

hot climate association sometimes?

ice cream

― David (David), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:57 (twenty-two years ago)

beach is the emperor of ice cream

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 09:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Archel is OTM about 'beach' - I think it works very nicely as a sort of crunchy word mid-line, whereras 'shore' on the other hand, is a very open end-of-line word.

'Coast' on the other hand, is just rubbish.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:01 (twenty-two years ago)

ever since I saw some wierd pop video called 'tekno beach', it's become the most unromantic word ever.

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:08 (twenty-two years ago)

popsongs abt beaches vs popsongs abt shores

echo beach/rockaway beach
sandy shaw, desertshore (haha nico top trump gameover cheat)

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:10 (twenty-two years ago)

sex on the beach vs. sex on the shore

― David (David), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:11 (twenty-two years ago)

The place I like the most/Is the East Sussex and its coast.

(Pure Shores wins this I think).

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Pure Shores works where Pure Beaches would sound ridiculous, innit?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Though in the song, the word shores is not used whereas beach is. Hmm.

― Pete (Pete), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:15 (twenty-two years ago)

coast is a great word

― gareth (gareth), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:17 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.alliedchemical.com/blackops/discos/media/bilk3.gif

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Would _The Beach_ have been a better novel if it was called _The Shore_?

'Life's a Shore'?

― alext (alext), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:23 (twenty-two years ago)

it shore is!

< /nyuk nyuk>

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

so we should change the 'who in this beach...' phrase to 'who in this shore'?

― joan vich (joan vich), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 11:29 (twenty-two years ago)

'She sells seashells on the seashore' vs Dover Beach...

(Actually that might be misleading as 'seashore' is a different word really, and Dover Beach uses every word BUT beach in the actual poem.)

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 11:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 11:35 (twenty-two years ago)

m,y book on the flintstones will be called: the grebting rowr of pebbles

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 11:38 (twenty-two years ago)

I prefer Baywatch.

― jel -- (jel), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Well pure shores has the partial rhyme which pure beaches doesn't which is why it works better. Mind you, Peachy Beaches would obviously be a far superior record if it actually existed.

― Matt (Matt), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 14:40 (twenty-two years ago)

English has several examples where there are two (or more) words for the same thing simply because it's a young language by comparison to most, and it imported words along the way from several. I dunno about "beach vs shore," but I'd bet if you lined up all the pairs (or groups of three or four) in English, the more poetic one is usually gonna be the one swiped from a Romance language.

Except for the bit about poetry having rules meant to be broken and all that...

― martin m. (mushrush), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 14:44 (twenty-two years ago)

usually it's the more poncy one viz cake vs gateau (momus to thread)

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 14:48 (twenty-two years ago)

A gateau is different from a cake in that it has icing ALL OVER (except on the bottom) whereas a cake may (but not necessarily) have icing on top & in the middle only.

This may or may not be true but it is in my head for some reason so more likely to have a grain of truth.

― Emma, Wednesday, 18 June 2003 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

"Shore" has ritzier vowel sounds, this rounded mellow "oar" with the hint of a W trailing off if you're from someplace that drops the R. "Beach" just plops out: "beeeech." Eep eek! Beeech.

Plus "shore" I think even literally has all of the connotations of sea verging on land, which is possibly more evocative than the workaday connotations of "beach" (e.g. sand in your shorts). Even in workaday terms "beach" tends to mean a specific beach, however large it seems to you when you're lying on it. But "the shore" means something broader, something very much like the whole coast, like the people in this area live in a completely different partly-aquatic world that deserves distinction.

Shores can be rocky!

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 15:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I think 'beach' as a verb has more interesting connotations, perhaps.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 15:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Writing this from Las Ramblas in the bottom level of a three-story video arcade and air-hockey parlor (surely the quintessence of romantic vacationing) (suzy we are going to Cal Pep soon but we have to wake up "early", since apparently it becomes impassable after 2pm)

Anyone from the NY area would probably think "beach" the more poetickal, since "shore" is forever and always for them wrapped up in "The Shore"; i.e. "The Jersey Shore"; 1st stop for all and sundry; lip-liner on cigarettes; the dregs of a Corona bottle wedged between the boardwalk and the foot-shower.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 15:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I´d rather shore myself up than find myself beached.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark, Matthew Arnold seemed to think "beach" was mistaken, as do New Order in one of their better lyrics i.e. Blue Monday. I think by "poetic" you mean "possessing a tendency to inspire reverie," but "beach" is as evocative as shore...more so for me 'cause I'm from California though the obvious i.e. Beach Boys associations aren't what I mean.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark, Matthew Arnold seemed to think "beach" was poetic enough, as do New Order in one of their better lyrics i.e. Blue Monday. I think by "poetic" you mean "possessing a tendency to inspire reverie," but "beach" is as evocative as shore...more so for me 'cause I'm from California though the obvious i.e. Beach Boys associations aren't what I mean.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 15:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I prefer the first of these two posts since it conflates the New Order lyric I had in my mind with what I meant to say.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

If the Beach Boys had had a song called 'The Girls On the Shore' I would have assumed it was about corpses being washed up.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

shore is euphonic.

― Mandee, Wednesday, 18 June 2003 18:07 (twenty-two years ago)

There's that famous, and rather mystifying, T.S. Eliot line, "Do I dare to eat a beach".

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

why is the word "whore" poetic when "bitch" isn't?

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 18:10 (twenty-two years ago)

why is the word "for" poetic when "felch" isn't?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, Eliot originally wrote "Do I dare to eat a Whore?" but decided it wasn't 'poetic' enough.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 19:10 (twenty-two years ago)

the assumption that certain words are more 'poetic' than their synonyms is fatuous (itself more 'poetic' than dumb or stupid). euphony and warm fuzzy linguistic associations make cannot make either beach or shore a better word choice. words themselves cannot be 'poetic,' though how they are employed, and to what effect, makes all the fucking difference.

― Elmo Oxygen (elmo oxygen), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Elmo, I don't think I agree. Poems are largely meant to be read aloud. The way a word sounds holds a lot of strength. Shore just sounds better than beach. Shore is soft. Beach is ragged.

― Mandee, Wednesday, 18 June 2003 19:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with the sound of 'beach'. As others have said, it's about the associations. And anyway, all this only applies to poetry of a certain sort - lyrical, I guess. It's easier to write bad poetry using a predetermined set of 'poetic' words than it is to fuck up with less obvious words.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 19:40 (twenty-two years ago)

nothing poetic nor unpoetic only usage makes it so, Elmo's right - Eliot was memorble able to make the word "squat" sound poetic.

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 19:46 (twenty-two years ago)

really I must confess to being somewhat shocked that mark s would be the man calling one word "more poetic" than another - my young goth self, may he rest in piece, would be sympathetic to this position, but most poets wouldn't

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think he is being entirely free of irony, John. 'Poetic' in the common, hackneyed understanding of the word (which is an interesing sense in itself).

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

i didn't say it was more poetic, i said it was poetic

― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 20:03 (twenty-two years ago)

right but so is this:

and I thought I told you to meet me,
so I went down to the beach

whereas if the line were "so I went down to the shore," you'd just wanna tell Barney to get off it already 'cause Mozz has already got the fake-romantic market cornered

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 20:13 (twenty-two years ago)

the etymology of both is pretty interesting. 'shore' poss. goes back to old norse 'skera' (to cut[!]) and then to sanskrit 'krnAti' {he injures[!!]) so that must be where the melancholy comes from.

beach is apptly slang from the 16th cent.

and as verbs they are very different.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 20:35 (twenty-two years ago)

mandee: i agree to your point that the phonetics of the word are important, but it is misguided by the assumption that only pleasant sounding words can have an effect on an audience. poetry implies pretty words and pretty ideas to too many people.

― Elmo Oxygen (elmo oxygen), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

please note alliteration in last sentence.

― Elmo Oxygen (elmo oxygen), Wednesday, 18 June 2003 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

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