David Wilson
Contributor
The Académie Française is France's national regulatory authority for the French language. It famously decreed that the French term for "pipeline" should be "oléoduc" ("oleoduct") and not the English loanword "pipeline". Most French speakers ignored the ruling and continued using the term "pipeline".I just call it the blade of the fin, maybe we should call them foot blades or perhaps this should be linked to the semantics thread?
The English language has no comparable regulatory authority. We have different spelling conventions for English on either side of the Atlantic Ocean (e.g. traveling / travelling) and even different American / British words for the same entity (e.g. sidewalk / pavement). With a language as widely and diversely spoken and written as English, my focus would be on "describing" rather than "prescribing" or "proscribing" usage, the lattermost two requiring the backing of international authorities respected by English speakers worldwide. For want of such linguistic legislative bodies, let us be content to take on board whatever contemporary and historical precedents there are for the use of terminology such as "fin" and "flipper" to denote divers' foot appendages in whole or in part before rushing to judgement.
