I think I've finally flipped out, had enough, become crapulent, a little agitated, skipped into bampot world & subsequently become somewhat vexed with this whole boat situation. From now on when somebody asks me What Boat I Paddle I fear I may eviscerate them inside cascades of word-masonry so epically profound they will think they've been run down by a 100 year Tsunami.
Look godamnit, it's a kayak, a qajaq, a qajariaq, a canoe with a full skin on & therefore not a boat. If people insist on calling kayaks boats, I will in turn, & at every opportunity point out that they are boaters & they are boating, & therefore not kayakers kayaking. If that appears pedantic, even ostentatious, then why was there a twinge of annoyance in the face of my Raasay pal when I mischievously asked if he was going boating as he unloaded his kayak into the straits one stormy day? The word boating for him, conjured pastoral wonders, straw hats, cucumber sandwiches, pompous Englishmen with insane overbites, riverbanks, punt poles, Ratty, Mole & Mr.Toad - all through the swirling waters of the Kyle, all through that black gale & swell, & all through that day like a bad song, a mouse on prozac scratching around in his brain, it followed him to his bed - that dirty boater got everything he deserved. Needless to say kayaking, as a generalization is accepted to conjour & precede far more adventure & demand on the participant than that fine & slightly limp-wristed pastime, we have come to know as boating.
If the term boating is unacceptable to a kayaker in it's implied reference & descriptive ability to encompass sea kayaking, it's wild & varying degrees of ferocity, calm & conditions, then the word boat to explain a sea kayak capable of taking on such terms & conditions of adventure should also be unacceptable. Indeed, if such a rant appears pedantic, even ostentatious, then how is it that I also know an old Inuit man from Nuuk who will throw anyone out of the Greenlandic rolling championships for using the word boat when they are referring to a kayak.
I am not alone in my quest, our numbers are swelling, we will see these boaters banished along with their long pointy boats to inland paddling pools & lochs where they will be pursued into submission by the relentless swarming antics of 10 year olds in pedaloes...sorry, by pedaloes I obviously meant wide kayaks...
I'm teetering like a madman on the edge, my laughter derisory, my fingernails screeching lines into a cartoon blackboard as I slide out of my balanced state into a maniacal pursuit of every post in the •≈ UKRGB kayak forum that starts with or incorporates the word boat in its subject matter, ie:
Which boat should I buy I'm 6ft 5 & 18 stone?
Any ya basta, most yachts & boats will carry several people of that stature in one go.

If the said tourist's passing comment had been: Nice ocean going vessel mate... I could have lived with that, yet equally, I have never had cause to say: Let us lift these ocean going vessels onto the upper surface of this land vehicle & perambulate forth until we find waters more fitting of our needs.
Kayak, Roof, Car, Walk, Sea: they are specifics in language & exist for a reason, & after some intense flash flood education, I realized I had in the fullness of description, caused the tourist to also perambulated forth.

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