"Flippers, goggles, oxygen tank" -- cringeworthy, or useful??

[Jcp2]

I think swim suits for the beach wasn’t a term until people actually swam for sport. Until then it was sea bathing.

History of Bathing Suits (PICTURES)

 

[D_Fresh]

Ok, I'll bite...

Michael Phelps uses goggles, Divers use masks...

Flipper was my favorite tv show growing up, and I use fins diving and snorkeling....

But Air Tank/Oxygen tank can be sort of regional, so I won't touch that one... I just use the terms Cylinder/Tank and Gas on SB because we have enough folks diving enriched or multi gas blends....

Not really cringe worthy, to me personally

 

[Bob DBF]

Having heard variations in nomenclature over the past 60+ years, I'm not inclined to cringe. The exception would be a SCUBA diver incorrectly using the term oxygen tank, as there are consequences in not understanding the difference when diving.


Bob

 

[The Chairman]

I often use the word "bottle" rather than "tank", just to mix things up. I don't mind the use of the word flipper in lieu of fin. Goggles have no nose piece, so they are useless in Scuba. Oxygen is poisonous, so I smile when someone who should be in the know uses that term. The funniest was the guy who went lobstering off of Tampa back in the early part of the century. He had a boat load of people, all having licenses so he could harvest a lot of lobster. None of them were divers, None of them knew how to operate the boat or use the radio. He surfaced 100 ft behind the boat and the current was just too much. He was slowly swept away. Later the next day, the Coasties found the boat, the hapless passengers and started a search for the diver. He was picked up near Key West. All the news papers reported that he was diving nitrous. Well, that certainly explains his horrible lack of judgement.

However, I learned to spell the term NitrOx many moons ago. You slackers who use nitrox or trox irk me.

 

[Akimbo]

However, I learned to spell the term NitrOx many moons ago. You slackers who use nitrox or trox irk me.

Talk about slackers, SCUBA is an acronym and should be all caps. It also was first coined for pure Oxygen rebreathers. See: US Navy Experimental Diving Unit, Post #2

 

[almostDIR]

Almost every non-diving person I know of calls the scuba tanks "oxygen tanks" here and when corrected in the next sentence they call them oxygen tanks again.
It can't be helped it seems

well, it was common to use surplus army oxygen tanks as scuba cylinders after the WW2 when they were cheap and available and sometimes even with pure oxygen until someone figured out (again) that pure oxygen in depth can be dangerous and normal air would maybe be better idea for normal use.
Somehow the "oxygen tank" has sticked with the general public for the last 70 years or so even when the normal divers have used air or light nitrox for decades now and pure oxygen is reserved for deco and rebreather use...

or maybe their reasoning being: you can't live without oxygen and there is no oxygen available underwater so you need to take some oxygen with you there in a tank.... the tank containing some oxygen being thus an "oxygen tank" because "oxygen is important"
it isn't that big of a deal until someone brings a tank which really has pure oxygen in it and the general public thinks it is the same than a normal scuba tank, just with a bit more informative labelling

I think someone also believed a "nitrox" tank would contain nitrous oxide... that would be pretty interesting underwater

 

[David Wilson]

The term "flippers" is the official English translation of the titles of the following national and international standards on fins:
1. Standards Publishing House (1977) Межгосударственный Стандарт ГОСТ 22469—77. Ласты резиновые для плавания. Общие технические условия. Swimming rubber flippers. General specifications, ИПК Издательство стандартов, Moscow. Document found online at https://pdf.standartgost.ru/catalog/Data2/1/4294831/4294831427.pdf
2. Deutsches Institut für Normung (1980) DIN 7876 - Wikipedia Tauchzubehör – Schwimmflossen – Maße, Anforderungen und Prüfung. Diving accessories for skin divers; Flippers, dimensions, requirements and testing. Beutz Verlag GmbH, Berlin.

The term "flipper" is used in US Military Standard MIL-S-82258 Requirements for swim fins made of gum rubber for wear by military personnel for swimming purposes and for general utility to denote the blade of a swim fin.

 

[Fastmarc]

I think we need to start a 'Flippers' movement.
WHO'S WITH ME?

 

[David Wilson]

Just to widen the range of vocabulary under consideration, as a fan of the visual arts, whenever I see the words "Deco" and "Hogarthian" in use within a diving context, I still automatically visualise the following:

1. Art Deco: Chrysler Building

2. William Hogarth: The Rake's Progress

 

[Akimbo]

I think we need to start a 'Flippers' movement.
WHO'S WITH ME?

Although I call them flip-flops, I hear flippers used a lot for these: