Will: pacific, atlantic, indian, arctic
Will: what's the 5th?
Dianna: southern
I was lied to my entire life. Well, sort of. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) decided in 2000 that this ocean existed. They chose 60 degrees south (latitude), and made any water south of that into the Southern Ocean. They stole from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans!
It's not even the smallest Ocean, it's the 4th largest. Imagine being the Arctic Ocean, you hear that they are creating a new ocean. 'Yeah! I'm not longer low man on the totem pole, now someone else is the smallest ocean!' But no, they even made it larger than the Arctic Ocean; I'd be pissed.
Do other people know about this ocean? Am I the only ignorant one? Let's check out some Google results.
"indian ocean" - about 51,700,000 results
"pacific ocean" - about 14,100,000 results
"atlantic ocean" - about 10,700,000 results
"arctic ocean" - about 1,990,000 results
"southern ocean" - about 1,930,000 results
I feel some relief that it has the least results, but look at how close the Southern and Arctic Oceans' results are. Still somewhat insulting to the Arctic; look at how much seniority it has.
Here's a quote from Wikipedia:
"by 1723 mapmakers such as Johann Homann featured an extensive "Oceanus Septentrionalis" at the northern edge of their charts."
Oh wow, only 277 years of seniority. Well let's look at some more Google results.
"five oceans" - about 60,100 results
"5 oceans" - about 126,000 results
"four oceans" - about 36,600 results
"4 oceans" - about 156,000 results
Overall, five oceans has 186,100 results, and four oceans has 192,600 results, so that's really close.
I polled some people via AIM and here some of the excerpts:
Will: off the top of your head, how many oceans are there?
Chris: ...three
Chris: no, four
Will: that's what i thought
Will: for the last 8 years there's been 5
Chris: indian, pacific, arctic, atlantic
Will: they fucking made an ocean
Chris: what?
Will: it's blowing my mind
Will: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ocean
Chris: which ocean was made?
Chris: what the fuck is this?
Will: in 2000 they just fucking decided
Chris: that's quite angering
Will: off the top of your head, how many oceans are there?
Dustin: 5
Will: what the hell, there are only supposed to be four
Will: i just discovered there's a fifth, and i'm pissed
Dustin: pacific, atlantic, indian, arctic, and damn it, whats the other
Will: southern
At least he couldn't think of the fifth; I feel a little better I suppose.
Will: i want to know what % of population thinks we have 4 oceans
Roy: I'm sure you'll get 7 as the most common response
Will: that's seven seas
Roy: but you're assuming the average person will differentiate between seas and oceans
Will: off the top of your head, how many oceans are there?
Jared: 4
Will: yeah, exactly
Will: but wait, no, there's five
Will: they CREATED an ocean!
Jared: indian, atlantic, pacific, arctic
Will: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ocean
Jared: what?
Jared: this was in the second edition of Limits of Oceans and Seas and no wished to mention to us when we were young
Jared: ridiculous
Will: yeah, really, how dare they
I am not of a fan of the IHO; how could they do this to me. I lost sleep over this.
Some resources I used to help blow my mind:
Wikipedia
Enchanted Learning
About.com
The CIA World Handbook
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