Flume?

[Thatsjusthowitisyeah]

Do you call it a flume anywhere else in the UK? In Scotland a big twisty slide in a swimming pool is called a flume but someone looked at me funny when I said it today and had never heard the word. They are English.

I'm in the SE and my family say flume.

Always called it a flume here in SE England.

Yep, we call it a flume. Midlands.

I’d probably call them slides but I’d absolutely know what you meant by flume.

Interesting. She said it’s a “water slide” which sounds American to me

Definitely a flume to me!

Is it a tube? So like going down a pipe? Because that is a flume imo, but if it is just a twisty open slide then it is a water slide.

Flume is a good word. Makes me think of happy times .

I like this nuance.

A flume is a tube and a water slide is a big open slide

This doesn't explain why OPs listener didn't appear to ever have heard the word 'flume' before. If they had, surely they would have offered this explanation?

I’ve always known them all as flumes. A slide would be one of those very small slides that go straight into a little kids splash pool.

I've lived in north, south and midlands and all use flume.

It's a water slider if you're from Bristol . A flume is usually prefixed with log and relates to rides at places like Alton Towers.

Tube water slide is a flume

I'm only familiar with log flume. Never heard it used in another other context or for another kind of slide

Flume in north east England

I don't think this signals a difference in regional use of language. I think it's due to differences in education or verbal sophistication.

Of course it’s a flume.

I'd know what you mean but it's not a word I ever use no. Neither does anyone else really
I just say water slides

Which way? In working class Glasgow it was always a flume to everyone.

Water flume, log flume. It’s definitely a thing.

In the way that someone you were talking to had apparently never heard the word 'flume'.

So was it a slide or a flume?

I've added a photo of a slide and a flume.

(Just imo)

A flume. Flumes aren’t always fully enclosed like a tube though and this one happened to be the kind that isn’t an enclosed tube- it’s like a half tube, open at the top. That’s a picture of a massive slide but a don’t know any swimming baths that have one of those. Looks like something you’d get in a soft play.