Talk:River Great Ouse

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[edit] Name

The River Great Ouse is a river in the east of England.

Does anyone actually call it the "River Great Ouse"? I would have thought the British convention "River X" does not apply where the name is already qualified: "River Nile" yes, "River Blue Nile" no. Perhaps as the title of the article title it's ok for clarity, but the intro should mention the form(s) people actually use. I would propose

The Great Ouse is a river in the east of England.

And is it pronounced "ooze"? Joestynes 09:33, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think I can help here, I live just 400 m from the river in Eaton Ford, Cambridgeshire and I can assure everyone that the river 'is' properly called 'The River Great Ouse', it's often abbreviated locally to just 'Ouse', and is sometimes referred to as the 'Great Ouse'. It is pronounced 'ooze', and in fact 'Ouse' and 'ooze' are cognate words, coming from either Saxon or Brythonic (I forget which) and referring to something wet and flowing or to the act of flowing. Basically, it's the River Great 'River'!

There's also a tributary called the 'River Little Ouse', and there are several other rivers also called Ouse, notably one in Yorkshire.

At the time of writing there are 214 000 [Google hits] for 'River Great Ouse', and a look at some of those websites should make it pretty clear that the full name really is used very widely. I agree that it's unusual, perhaps even strange, but that is what people call it. I hope that helps! Chris Jefferies 23:46, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Very little of it is in East Anglia. RJP 23 Apr 2005

As far as the name goes, I may be remembering wrong (I was quite young when I lived near the river) but ISTR that it was usually called The Great River Ouse, and its tributary was The Little River Ouse. Grutness...wha? 12:25, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Northants

I was surprised to find no mention of the Northamptonshire part of the river in the template, and no mention of Brackley in the text (the first town that the G.O. passes through). I've added it to both - by the way, shouldn't the list of tributaries in the text and template at least look vaguely similar? There's not a huge overlap betwen the two... Grutness...wha? 01:21, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The point about the tributaries is a good one; the list and the template have separate origins. The template claims to show 'major tributaries' so should certainly not include Hen Brook and Duloe Brook as these are very, very minor.

I've fiddled with both the list and the template to bring them in line. I've also removed the smaller tributaries from the template. Can others check again please, some of these tributaries may be out of sequence. Also, do we have any consensus on what we mean by a 'major' tributary in the template? Chris Jefferies 17:08, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

The list of rivers, Rivers of the United Kingdom lists the tributaries from the sea up. At first sight, this seems a rather back-to-front approach but it has a logic to it. You start from the sea and go to the higher order streams (those with tributaries with tributaries etc.) first, then the lower. It would not be possible to work the other way round.

As to which size of tributary is too small to be noted, the logical approach would be to judge by flow rates or the like but that is not practical so I suggest that the tributary in question should be named by the Ordnance Survey 1:50 000 map and/or the stream in question should be shown extending from a minimum number of kilometre grid squares. For example, the Alconbury Brook near Huntingdon is shown in 30 Km squares and may be deemed to qualify while the South Brook, a little upstream, barely counts 20 and perhaps, does not qualify. There are bound to be cases like the South Brook where several squares are only just entered but you have to judge somehow.

Working upstream, The tributaries are: Babingley River (22 Km squares), Middle Level Main Drain, Nar, Well Creek/Popham's Eau, The Cut-off Channel, Wissey, Little Ouse, Lark, Cam, Alconbury Brook, Kym (23 Km squares), Ivel, [here my OS 1:50 000 coverage ends] Tove,

The Old and New Bedford Rivers are not really tributaries. They link one part of the Great Ouse to another. They are in reality, part of the Great Ouse after the manner of the modern relief channel to the east of the lower Great Ouse. The Cut-Off Channel on the other hand is a modern catchwater drain. It is linked to the Great Ouse only at the Cut-off Channel's downstream end. (RJP 20:31, 25 July 2005 (UTC))