English vocabulary: Bodies of stationary freshwater

I love spending a lot of time outdoors, visiting secluded, nature-rich, spots. Among my favourites are lakes, ponds, and marshes – which gave me the idea for this vocabulary post. 

There are many words in English referring to different (yet often very similar) bodies of stationary freshwater. Let’s go through the main ones. 

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A ‘stationary’ body of water means that the water is static – there is no flow. Unlike rivers and streams, lakes are stationary, as are ponds, swamps, and marshes. How can you tell the difference between these stationary ones?

A LAKE is a body of water deep enough to have different layers. These layers differ in the amount of light, warmth, and nutrients they contain. Also, lakes are typically wide and open. 

A POND is just a small and more shallow lake, right? Well, not necessarily. While this is how dictionaries often define them, there are many ‘ponds’ that are quite large and deep! There is actually no official distinction between the two, and the words ‘pond’ and ‘lake’ are often used interchangeably. 

Marshes and swamps are recognizably different, though. Both are WETLANDS – wide areas of land covered with shallow water (fresh, salty or brackish). The difference between those two has to with the type of vegetation that grows there: typical for a MARSH are various grasses, shrubs and reeds, while a SWAMP has lots of trees growing there – it looks like a forest growing out of the water. 

Then there are bogs and fens. A BOG may appear a bit boring, as there is nothing much growing there apart from mosses and sturdy shrubs. The bottom of a bog consists of clay which prevents the water from flowing out. Low in nutrients, it doesn’t support the biological diversity seen in freshwater bodies we’ve covered earlier. However, bogs store a lot of carbon from the atmosphere, making them of utmost importance for the life on Earth. Also, when the nature is in bloom, bogs can be just magical!

Finally, FENS are similar to bogs, but even visually you can see much greater diversity in the plant and animal life. That’s because in fens there is a constant stream of fresh water coming from cracks in the clay bottom, bringing in a lot more nutrients. 

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VOCABULARY EXERCISE 

Have a look at these photos. What types of stationary bodies of fresh water can you see? (Scroll down for the answer key.) 

Click here for the answer key.

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COVER IMAGE CREDIT

Photo by Luke Hodde on Unsplash.