(no subject)

[tuulia]

It turns out that I don't know enough English words relating to mires.

What do you call a small patch of bog that cannot support weight, surrounded by bog that can? What is the English word for a pine wood mire? Does anyone use the word slough in this context? What's the difference between a bog and a morass? Dictionaries only get you so far, since they tend to equate different types of mires.

Edit: Found it on Wikipedia under "Fen". The classification is fens, marshes, bogs and swamps. Good! "Swamp" was the word I needed. Still don't know what to call the swamp's eye, or what precisely is a morass.

Comments

[senmut]

I am not certain but when I think of morass I think of sticky/clinging/pulling whereas a bog is something you're going to sink into without it actively grabbing you down.

[tuulia]

"Morass of legal troubles." The dictionary definition of morass includes "quagmire, swamp, bog, marsh, muskeg, mire, marshland, wetland, slough, moor" - very different environments! Quagmire at least also carries the connotation of being difficult to wade through.

I've been wandering around a few swamps recently, and they are rather difficult to get through, but it might be because I was in areas of loose rock - glacier-deposited boulders and ancient shorelines - rather than because of the mossy moist ground. They weren't muddy, which might turn out to be the best distinction. Maybe morass and quagmire refer to muddy mires, specifically, whether they're marshes (water over ground), fens (grassy), bogs (raised peatland) or swamps (wet forests characterized by sphagnum moss).

This is not necessarily the most useful research hole to fall down right now...