After looking it up in YDC, in the sense common to both words, I obtained this facts: "shore" is the land bordering a mass of water, no matter its size or shape; whereas "coast" is only the land next to the sea, i.e. the [I]seashore[/I].
My dictionary gives the reverse description, with shore for land bordering any large body of water and coast applying only to land along an ocean (ex: we refer to the east and west coasts).
Most native speakers would use them interchangably, Kasia.
I tend to think of shore as land visibly above the waterline, perhaps because the verb shore means to prop something up. I think of coast as a softer incline, perhaps because the verb coast indicates movement based on (slowing) momentum rather than propulsion. However, that’s just my sense of the words; others may feel them differently.
In Swedish, we have kust, from medieval Latin costa, ‘side’, from Latin costa ‘side, rib’. That is the zone where land encounters the sea or a large lake.
For shore, we use strand - or kust! - defining strand as the dynamic boundary between land and water in oceans, seas and rivers.
Experts in oceanology and limnology will of course make fine distinctions here, like "litoral", which I so far have found only in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, German and Swedish, which seems to mean the shore zone where photosynthesis is possible and/or where you find vegetation.
Most native speakers would use them interchangably, Kasia.
This may well be a first: I disagree with gailr.
San Francisco is on the west coast of the US. There must be parts of the city that are many miles from the ocean, but they are still on the coast by virtue of the fact that the westernmost parts of the city are right by the water. You can use "the west coast" to refer to all the cities and states closest to the Pacific ocean, between the Canadian border and the Mexican border.
However, for me the shore is the land right next to the water of an ocean, sea or lake. A beach is one type of shore (if the water is a river, then the land is a bank). I would never say that SF is on the west shore of the US, but come to think of it, I might say that it was on the shores of the Pacific.
Incidentally, strand survives (I believe) in some northern English and Scots dialects, and in a famous London streetname. And of course, it’s the root of stranded - literally, washed up on the beach.
Experts in oceanology and limnology will of course make fine distinctions here, like "litoral", which I so far have found only in Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, German and Swedish, which seems to mean the shore zone where photosynthesis is possible and/or where you find vegetation.
I had always thought that the proper translation for "shore" was indeed Spanish "litoral". On that base I was going to answer Kasia, but I hesitated and, when I checked the meaning in YDC, I discovered my error. Which term would be used in English for "litoral" then?
Regards,
WS,
posting from Spain’s city farthest off the coast.
PS: sitran:
Forgot to add that lakes, ponds, creeks, and rivers have shores, but do not have coasts.
Isn’t it coast or seaboard, as in The Mediterranean coast/seaboard = el litoral mediterráneo, or coastline, as in Chile has a long coastline = Chile tiene un largo litoral?
[quote author=Sitran link=board=what;num=1104157910;start=0#10 date=01/05/05 at 18:43:40]... But neither brooks nor mudpuddles have shores! They have edges, like an artificial pool!
