Talk:Head of tide

American/British English
Is 'Head of tide' a term principally used in the US? I've not come across it in the UK but am familiar with the term which appears on all relevantly scaled Ordnance Survey maps of the UK - 'normal tidal limit'. cheersGeopersona (talk) 17:40, 26 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I've done some merging/redirecting and added NTL to this article. Hope that helps. Argovian (talk) 23:32, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Must admit I was surprised to find that Tidal limit ended up at a term I had never heard of, I thought it was a mix up with the rowing competitions called Head of the River Race. Google books did throw up a ref that I have included for head of tide, but it does have a a great deal more for tidal limit. Are we sure that head of tide is the primary use, given that tidal limit it is used by Australia and the UK ...Jokulhlaup (talk) 17:33, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I suspect "tidal limit" is more widely used - perhaps the article should be moved? Argovian (talk) 17:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea, let me know if you need me to do a requested move...Jokulhlaup (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if you want to, go ahead. Argovian (talk) 21:18, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 28 April 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. Number   5  7  21:56, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Head of tide → Tidal limit – Ngrams show that ‘head of tide’ seems to be an archaic term with usage seemingly restricted to the US, whereas ‘tidal limit’ is a term used both in Australia and the UK. Jokulhlaup (talk) 16:29, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: The ngram provided by Jokulhlaup only covers up until 2000, if the ngram is extended up until 2008 the trend actually turns back again in favour of 'head of tide' (see here). The two major objections to this move are most likely going to be WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ENGVAR. However this doesn't necessarily mean that a move shouldn't take place: if it can be demonstrated that all varieties of English use 'tidal limit', whereas only American English uses 'head of tide', then this would be an appropriate move per WP:COMMONALITY which states that a universally used term should be favoured over a regional term, even if the regional term is used more. I notice that a brief discussion on this topic has taken place further up the page, perhaps, , or might be able to find some sources to this effect? Ebonelm (talk) 18:36, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Oppose ENGVAR. Plain and simple. Also, HoT zones, or head of tide zones, are equally well described in the USA on maps as the Tidal Limits are described in the UK on their maps. We can't supplant one persons preferred version of english over someone else's just because of the 'more countries speak british english' rule. british english doesn't automatically get a win. ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 07:09, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Support It appears to be a term only used in the United States/by American texts. The above anon. IP comment (why are IP addresses allowed to 'vote'?) seems to be part of some anti-British English trolling effort (see his editing history please). "Plain and simple"? What, like "tidal limit" - that's plain and simple language, hence why it is used by the majority of English speaking countries. Argovian (talk) 08:44, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

comment Of course Ip users are allowed to vote, why on earth would they not? Further, move requests aren't votes, they are decided upon consensus of the community. Just because you use 'tidal limit' doesn't mean I do, nor do 300,000,000 americans, also, we have engvar just for this reason. Regardless, I use USGS maps A LOT, and OS maps A LOT, and guess what, depending on where you are, they have different varieties of english on them. Also, hydrologists, physicists, mariners all use the term Head of Tide in different areas. The plain and simple fact I was alluding to is, it's an ENGVAR issue to change this title, so I don't think it should be done. Please, raise consensus to change if you think it should be. And be kind, don't accuse people for trolling just because they have a different interest in wikipedia than you do. Jeesh. ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 23:26, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Oppose: On grounds of Commonality and Engvar. "Head of Tide" is not "archaic" as nom suggests as it has a formal definition and application in the NOAA A Guide to National Shoreline Data and Terms. Additionally, given that there is a 3.5:1 probability that any given English speaking reader from the UK, Australia or US is going to be more familiar with American English (~320M (US) versus 23.8M + 64.5M (Aus and UK), the term should stay at Head of Tide. The term Tidal Limit is dealt with just fine by the redirect. --Mike Cline (talk) 11:03, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose per ENGVAR. Basically what Mike Cline said above. Calidum T&#124;C 03:19, 6 May 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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