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Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2000 12:19:57 -0500
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Bay vs. Sound
Sender: [log in to unmask]


The following are comments regarding bay vs. sound.  Firstly, the naming
process is, in fact, subjective and varies greatly, regionally and even
locally.  Further, there are no official terms or definitions when using
generic references with the specific part of geographic names.  Hence,
mountain and hill may be used interchangeably, and even river and creek do
not always display a strict hierarchical configuration.  The same is true
with sound and bay although there may be some explanation.  As the email
indicates sound is derived from an Old English word "sund" of Scandinavian
origin and meaning to swim.  Eventually, the word came to be a general
reference to an expanse of water or even a sea.  By the 16th and 17th
centuries, it seems to have become focused as a body of water separating
two larger bodies of water hence the association with strait, or a body of
water separating an island or islands from the "maine" or the mainland,
which accounts for the use as a generic term in Pamlico Sound , the
principal body of water separating North Carolina's Outer Banks from the
mainland.  Also, there seems to have been an attempt well into the 17th
century to associate the use of sound as a generic term used with
geographic names as applied to bodies of water capable of taking
"soundings" or depth measurements although this does not seem to be
substantiated.  Gradually, by the end of the 18th century the term fell
into disuse except as a vestige of features already named, and well
established on maps.

Roger L. Payne
Executive Secretary,
  U,S. Board on Geographic Names
703.648.4544
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