At 08:10 AM 2/10/2009, wwildch...@aol.com wrote:
While on the thru-trip I believe it was one of the ASS cavers that asked me what the difference was between a cave and a cavern.
In my mind, since I was but 5 or 6 and first visited Carlsbad--maybe sooner, I have always associated a cave as being a cave--any enterable subterranian passage, and all of it--every bit, the whole thing, all passages and associated features with no restrictions other than the cave's natural limits--a single entity with multiple rooms, passages, et cetera. While at the same time a cavern is but a smaller portion of the entire cave--a subset of it, an associated lesser part or parcel of the entire cave--such as "the southwest cavern(s) of the main cave" or, perhaps, a large room as in "a cavern that dwarfs any other room in the cave". The term cavern(s) was more-or-less specific to a large passage or room or group of rooms or passages that make up the greater cave. I'll reiterate that that's only my personal interpretation of 'um.
In common parlance--in the vernacular--that is not necessarily the way the terms are used. Cave seems to be interpretted as just a generic term for an enterable, underground passage of no particularly exceptional discreption or expanse. Cavern--or even more specifically, caverns--carries some inborn mystery and suspense and grandeur about it in the minds of the mere mortals who even bother to think about such things. So, it seems that a large number of commercial caves take on the Cavern sobriquet in order to draw in the general public. Cavers, on the other hand, seldom use the term Cavern when naming caves. It seems a little uppity to us. Notice that it is Carlsbad Cavern (singular), not Caverns, but Longhorn Caverns, suggesting that there's but one of the former and more than one of the latter or, perhaps, that a cavern or caverns is a conglomeration of multiple caves in their minds. I'm not sure that Joe the Plumber makes any such distinction.
My ideas are, of course, all in my own head--as are everyone else's in their's--and don't mean much outside of that rhelm. I would suggest, though, that for all practical purposes the terms Cave and Cavern are pretty damned much interchangable insofar as technical and philosophical differences or similarities are concerned. It is, of course, a great opportunity, when some newby asks, to make up a lie of some sort in order to exercise your own creativity, test the gullability of the newby, and cause your credibility to be circumspect. With important matters like the difference between cave and cavern it's sometimes good to leave people a little bit confused.
--Ediger
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