diving semantics

[nimoh]

I had an interesting conversation recently, where there was a lot of confusion regarding intended meaning of sentences. I probably thought about the discussion too much, but I came up with a few phrases related to diving that I think are a little odd.

For each of these, ask your self was the second dive deeper or shallower?

1. My dive this morning was to 80', my second dive was less than that.

2. My dive this morning was to 80', my second dive was higher than that.


I would ask that you answer before reading other responses. Also, feel free to add other sentences related to diving that are a little ambiguous.

 

[cb5150]

I dunno...I had the same thought for both; that the second dive was shallower. Perhaps I'm just preconditioned to shallower second dives?

 

[dbulmer]

1) Dive 2 is shallower
2) Dive 2 is deeper

Using the English grammatical construct - the comparative.

An ambigious statement in diving - Ok,

I'm a PADI instructor - Ambiguous because it could mean a well experienced well dived up professional Or a Zero to hero trained muppet.

 

[dfx]

I'd say that both of them were shallower.

 

[DaleC]

Both more shallow. The only value is 80', a depth mark. Less than that would be more shallow. Higher than that would relate to elevation which would make it more shallow. The opposites would be more, deeper or lower.

The second dive was more than that.
The second dive was deeper than that.
The second dive was lower than that.


Now for sentence semantics: Is shallower a word?

 

[dbulmer]

Yes shallower is a word

 

[dfx]

Now for sentence semantics: Is shallower a word?

shal·low (sh

l

)adj. shal·low·er, shal·low·est

shal•low (ˈʃæl o&#650

adj. -low•er, -low•est, adj.

 

[uncfnp]

Both second dives were shallower. In the first sentence, a deeper dive would be "more" or deeper. The second sentence a deeper dive would be " lower." At least, that is the way I would read it.

 

[James R]

I would like to just see divers get breathe and breath right then go from there. Crawl. Walk. Run.

 

[nimoh]

Both more shallow. The only value is 80', a depth mark. Less than that would be more shallow. Higher than that would relate to elevation which would make it more shallow. The opposites would be more, deeper or lower.

The second dive was more than that.
The second dive was deeper than that.
The second dive was lower than that.


Now for sentence semantics: Is shallower a word?

Given the topic, I definitely opened myself up for grammar criticism, I think you are right, the correct way to say it would be "more shallow"

In your examples, I think the first and third are also ambiguous, although the second I don't believe it to be. I think the ambiguity comes from the fact that depth is technically a negative number (i.e. a distance below the surface), but we express it as a positive number and imply the negativeness (is that a word?). For example, 100 is greater than 80, but -100 is less than -80.

I think that when the term "deeper" or "more shallow" are used, then there is no ambiguity because a 100' depth is deeper than an 80' depth, and -100' is deeper than -80'.

I am not going anywhere with this, just thought it would be a interesting discussion. After a few replies with different answers, I think it is safe to assume that the statements are at least ambiguous.