Fippers vs Fins

[SStrecker]

I prefer to call them fins but you will get a bigger laugh from your dive buddies if you call them "flippers".

 

[cpe111]

so do you 'flipper along' with flippers and 'fin along' with fins?

 

[SDAnderson]

Everyone pretty much called them "flippers" until the late 60's when Scuba Pro came out with their "Jet Fins" and marketed them as an enormous technical leap requiring a more serious name. All the marketing departments were happy to jump on that bandwagon and the popular language began to change. ScubaPro was correct about the enormous technical leap part but I still find myself occasionally calling them flippers - the hazards of old age, I guess. Color me quaint if you will but it has been my observation that this is a discussion that occurs online far more often than it does on the back of a dive boat.

 

[midwayman]

Everyone pretty much called them "flippers" until the late 60's when Scuba Pro came out with their "Jet Fins" and marketed them as an enormous technical leap requiring a more serious name. All the marketing departments were happy to jump on that bandwagon and the popular language began to change.

Ah hah. I figured there might be a story somewhere!

 

[Whatgoesdown]

Flipper was a dolphin.

I think Flipper was actually a porpoise, something to do with them being easier to train. And they deceived us for so many years!

 

[agdiver75]

I know you're supposed to call them fin, but it got me thinking. Dont they call the appendages that propel sea mammals flippers? Since we are mammals and not fish, wouldnt it be more appropriate to call fins flippers?

flip·per Pronunciation Key (flpr) n.
1. A wide flat limb, as of a seal, whale, or other aquatic mammal, adapted for swimming.

Know its never going to change, but just thinking.... Or maybe there is a reason they're called fins I dont know about.

The things on sea mammals rear appendages are called 'flukes'. If I put them on my hands they would be flippers. We need to all change to flukes

 

[Santa]

.... Or maybe there is a reason they're called fins I dont know about.

THe reason is that "flippers", besides calling up unwelcome images of that old tv-show,
sounds foolish, touristy and definately not serious and as you know we divers are very very very serious about gear. It is no flipping matter.

Who would want his obituary reading "lost a flipper and was carried away by heavy current"?

"Flippers" is a word best uttered in a highpitched, shrill yet strangely delighted old womans voice - quite possibly with a slight dutsch tweak at the end making it come out "flippersch" (the way I first heard it).

Regardless of what any book says, I hesitate to even apply the term to marine animals "the flipper of a whale" somehow doesn't call up the majestic images I crave.

Other than that it's probably a military leftover - Everything has a specific name; use it not and you´re in for no end of pushups (and I'm not talking ladies underwear).

 

[dpbishop]

Their called 'fins' because 'Latvians' is to hard to spell.

 

[creamofwheat]

Ok, as I was reading through this thread, I started repeating the word "flipper" over and over in my head. Think about it. Flipper, flipper, flipper, flipper, flipper, flipper

And then I started cracking up. It's a funny word. It just sounds...weird. Funny. And it makes me think of the dolphin (porpoise???).

So, I use the word "fins". It doesn't make me randomly burst into laughter, but it does sound a lot better. But that is me.

 

[Santa]

"Fin" in Danish means fine, and that's what they are. "flipper" on the other hand (or foot) translates as something like "pipe-hitting, juvenile delinquent, rockn'roll punk".

I do believe I'm making a valid point here.