Title : Who knew that swimming in natural bodies of water was a special sort of swimming in need of a revival and a retronym?
link : Who knew that swimming in natural bodies of water was a special sort of swimming in need of a revival and a retronym?
Who knew that swimming in natural bodies of water was a special sort of swimming in need of a revival and a retronym?
I just learned that, reading "THE SUBVERSIVE JOY OF COLD-WATER SWIMMING/Britons are skipping the heated pool and rediscovering the pleasures of lakes, rivers, and seas—even in winter" by Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker.Apparently, the shift to swimming in chlorinated pools was so extensive that people (in Britain anyway) started talking about "wild swimming." It seems to be a retronym (like snail mail and acoustic guitar).
Anyway, as you can see from the title, the article is about not just swimming in outdoor natural water, but swimming in cold water — because there are lots of lakes in Britain, and they're cold.
[S]erious cold-water swimmers recommend going in the water at least three times a week, in order to maintain the body’s acclimatization.... [Swimming in 40°F water,] I stayed in just long enough to experience what might be called the smug reflex: the sense of satisfaction that comes from accomplishing, and even enjoying, something that most people would find unfathomably off-putting....ADDED: I don't swim in the local lakes in winter (or summer, for that matter), but I understand feeling good about yourself for going out in the cold. I've been running at dawn all winter, and it makes me feel good about myself in a way that going out when it's hot never does.
Advocates of cold-water swimming dwell less on its risks than on the health benefits that it allegedly bestows.... [L]ittle research has been done on whether wild swimming benefits one’s mental state.... For people who have experienced trauma, the focus that’s required for cold-water swimming may be helpful, paradoxically, in generating a sense of calm and control....
Little focusses the mind so well as being in water so cold that, unless you are careful, your breath will literally be taken....
Is "smug" — Rebecca Mead's word — the right word for how I feel? The OED definition is: "Trim, neat, spruce, smart; in later use, having a self-satisfied, conceited, or consciously respectable air." And: "The word has been in very common use from the 16th cent., and the earlier sense shades imperceptibly into the later, so that quotations cannot be separated." So "smug" evolved from positive to negative.
In 2010, the UW student newspaper called me "smugly inscrutable."
I think we experience "smug" as a portmanteau of "mug" (meaning "face") and "smile."
I wouldn't use the word "smug" for how I feel about running in the cold because I don't feel that unusual or special, and I don't think about how I'm doing this and someone else isn't up to it. It's really not that hard to do. It's just not bad to be out in the cold. The key is repetition — acclimatization.
Thus articles Who knew that swimming in natural bodies of water was a special sort of swimming in need of a revival and a retronym?
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