So how would you say "the river is flowing south by SW." ?
The river's direction is SSW.
I'm gobsmacked that you think that's anything other than stilted and awkward. Saying that a river flows is far more normal and natural, and you're not achieving anything useful at all by insisting otherwise.
A river is already flowing, otherwise it would be a lake. Saying it twice does not help unless you are writing poetry.
Ratch.
Hi again Ratch Ratch,
You have a problem with a river flowing too?
A river does not turn into a lake just because it stops flowing. A river stays a river no matter what the state of motion happens to be at the time. For one thing, there might be an assumption that the water will one day start moving again. So we dont rename the river just because the water stops flowing for some time. We might build a dam for example.
I think the main problem is that you are diving too deep into the nouns, trying to use their underlying constructs to build a case against using them in sentences in certain ways. With our language when we make a noun it doesnt matter how we made it. Once it becomes a noun like 'river' it automatically acquires a single definition all on it's own. The constructs drop away and in their place there comes one single entity so there are no longer two or more to deal with. 'Current' becomes a noun that stands by itself so we dont have to dive into the constructs. When we say 'car' we dont have to dive in and explain every part the car is made of.
You say you dont want to change the world but you are always telling people about the 'problem' with the phrase "current flow". You obviously wish to make some kind of impact on the public.
Again, we also have "traffic flow".
Seeing the phrase in various books does say something about the usage. It means that most people are comfortable with saying it that way. It may be true that we might want to bring attention to the fact that there is charge actually moving, but that is left until it is needed in Applied Electronics 102.
Another point is that when you go specific (highly detailed) into a matter such as this, you can always find an argument of some kind. For example, when you say that current is the flow of charge that's not really true either it is the statistical flow of charge, and normally it does not travel in one direction but moves back and forth slightly as it makes it's way from one end of the wire to the other (DC current).
OH MY! I just said "DC current", which means "direct current current". Do i get a spanking because of this :-)
You see how "DC" became one single entity, the noun, and can be used like any other noun?
Geeze i better not say,
"the DC current flow was 10 amps",
because i just said,
"the direct current current flow flow was 10 amps".
Geeze, i better go back to English class :-)