OT: Seven Seas

On 13 Dec, Mark J. Reed wrote:


> On Sun, Dec 12, 2004 at 06:44:05PM -0500, # 1 wrote:
>> Two oceans?
>> Arctic, Atlantic, Indian and Pacific it makes four.
>
> Yes, of course.  Five, if you count the Antarctic separately.  And
> some would further divide the Atlantic and Pacific into North and South,
> which makes seven and may be the origin of the "Seven Seas"
> phrase.  But then again, there's physically only one ocean, as they all
> connect . . .
>
>
>> and there are thousands of seas!
>
> In reality, sure - at least potentially; I'm not sure about "thousands",
> but certainly hundreds.  At any rate, I was referring to "the Seven
> Seas", which is a set phrase in English referring to all the seas and
> oceans of the world.    You can learn more about the phrase's history
> here, if you're curious:
>
>        http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/m7sea.html

The above link doesn't work for me, so I don't know if the following was
mentioned there or not. But just in case it wasn't, I'd like to share
something interesting on the topic:

    Mark Kurlansky, in his book "Salt: a world history"
(an excellent book BTW; I highly recommend it!)
in the chapter dealing with ancient Italian salt production, says the
following:

    "The Italian mainland was originally much farther away from
the islands that are now the city of Venice. The area between
these islands and the peninsula of Comacchio was called the
Seven Seas. "To sail the seven seas" meant simply sailing the
Seven Seas --- accomplishing the daunting task of navigating past the
sandbars of those treacherous twenty-five miles."
    "About A.D. 600, Venetians started using landfill to extend the
mainland closer to the islands of modern-day Venice. The Seven Seas
became a landmass with a port named Chioggia. Below it, in
a now much-narrowed lagoon, was Comacchio, overlooking the
delta of the Po. Ravenna, formerly a port, became an inland city,
and nearby Cervia became its port."

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.