to expect people to use the terms 'kayak' and 'canoe' properly?

[NotQuiteCockney]

I am just thinking about buying a canoe. Canoes are open boats. Kayaks are the closed ones. Yes, really. I'm Canadian. I would know!

But thanks to British confusion, the terms seem to be used randomly on ebay.

[NadineBaggott]

when all's said and done it's a boat isn't it?

[FrannyandZooey]

pmsl

[NotQuiteCockney]

[allgonebellyup]

ha ha
what a joke

[TheArmadillo]

I think in Britain we often use canoe when we mean kayak.

It would irritate me if I could ever remember which was which.

[heifer]

do you know I was just talking about this to my friend the other day..

It really gets my goat....

[MadEyemarthamooDy]

Oh, I agree - this happens to me practically every day and it's very annoying. I have had so many 'canoes' delivered that, when they turn up, are actually kayaks.

[NotQuiteCockney]

Right, I'm making iced tea now.

And I'm going to call it 'tea'.

Seriously, it's bloody annoying, I've had arguments with brits about it. It's hardly important, but it's irritating, you'd think if you were selling one you'd know the right name!

[NotQuiteCockney]

Canoes = open, deeper. Paddles have blade on only one end. Normally has two people in it.

Kayak = closed, shallower. Can do rolls. Double-bladed paddle. Normally has one person in it.

[NotQuiteCockney]

[Saturn74]

It's a long time since I went canoodling.

[Troutpout]

Surely you mean a dinghy?.
We call them dinghys in our house
Canoes are closed ones aren't they?

[MadEyemarthamooDy]

Canoe - hard to see how two people fit, actually

Kayak

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

[FrannyandZooey]

[Twiglett]

nope

learnt canoeing when at school

it was closed

I fell in the Mersey and nearly drowned but I died of blood poisoning first

[Twiglett]

ROFL at moo .. good ones, like the slight surreality

[Twiglett]

NQC, my friendly canadian just send them this link

but really, its canadian .. nobody cares, aye

[aloha]

Roffling at moo.

It's a problem isn't it? Once I ordered a tomato and got a tomayto. I nearly called the whole thing off.

[Twiglett]

oh good one Aloha

[DontCallMeBaby]

It's not terribly unreasonable to expect people selling stuff on Ebay to call it by the right terms, it helps with the selling, after all. However my MAIN reason for wanting to get this one right ALWAYS is that I got corrected on it at Christmas. By a three-year-old. Bah.

[hufflebranpuff]

I came to say YABU, but then I saw it was you and I'm forced to admit that you're just being foreign, not unreasonable.

Where are you going to canoe? Not the grim waterways of NE London I hope.

[MadEyemarthamooDy]

Roffling back at aloha

[iota]

I've found a pedal kayak I think we should just call it a bicycle and be done with it

[NotQuiteCockney]

Ahem. Twiglett, it's spelt 'eh'. Not 'aye'. We're not pirates, eh?

I am indeed planning to canoe the grim waterways of NE London. I am going canoeing or kayaking with a group on Sunday morning, in the local grim waterway.

[NotQuiteCockney]