幾年前因希望將一篇刊登在文學城上自己喜歡的文章保存在文學城裏，我需要有一個《個人書簽》。於是就隨便想了一個以前似曾聽聞過的一個叫作“Riverbrook” 的詞作為我的帳戶名注了冊，以取其中“小溪”的意思。之後就沒怎麽用過它，因為我幾乎不上文學城。直到近幾日，心血來潮又來到這兒並在同一賬戶名下開了個博客。

向博客前輩們學習，也為代表我的“形象”，我得找一張與我賬戶名接近的圖像to go with it。可上網敲入 "Riverbrook + images"後卻沒找到任何與溪（或河）有關的圖像。查了一下字典,才恍然大悟 --- 原來本就沒這個詞;有人隻是把 river + brook = Riverbook  來作人名,公司或組織名罷了。

帶著好奇的心情,我查了單詞 brook, creek,steam, river, pond, lake, sea an d ocean, 包括他們各自的定義、相同處和不同處。對比之下，我個人感覺是英文的解釋較仔細易辨。如在中文將"brook" 和 "creek" 都譯成 “溪”，而英語字典和網上則說(大意）---

All of brooks, creeks, streams, rivers, seas, and oceans are flowing waters,while ponds can be still water. Brooks are smallest water channels. Creeks are often larger than brooks, and they are also sometimes referred as streams.  However the word “stream” is a generic term of any body of flowing water, which could be on the surface of the earth, underground, and even within an ocean, such as Gulf Stream. Rivers are large streams flow over land. Ponds are small lakes, usually contains water by nature compressions. Lakes are any accumulation of water surrounded by land in considerable sizes. A very large lake that contains salt water is known as sea, and  sea can be attached to or even a part of ocean.  Oceans are the ultimate bodies of water and refers to the five oceans in the World - Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Indian, and Southern.  *

對於上述內容我雖然沒去考證它的準確性,然而卻覺得挺有意思的。通過查找“小溪”這個小詞的過程,我得到一個小心得,那就是 ----  學無止境。

* Source: http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/waterbodies.htm