Quicksand

[nailit]

Is there any such thing as quicksand?
As in the movies where people get sucked under?
Or is it a bit of a myth?

[Psybbo]

Yes, frighteningly so

[jomifl]

No myth, about 10 years ago a kid got stuck in quicksand in Morecambe bay and despite the best efforts of the fire brigade, when the tide came in he drowned.

[Baldric]

Google is your friend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksand

[Buenchico]

You can't drown in quicksand because, once you've sunk to waist level, you start to float. (So the 'getting sucked under' bit is purely in the imaginations of writers and film makers). However you can still die from incoming tides or from hypothermia.

From the BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/zqvmpv4

See also:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ABO9CW3tDI

[Peter Pedant]

esp on halloooooween !

all you need is an updraft of water under the sand so it becomes squidgy and will act like quicksand

the thing is to lie flat as quig as poss so that you will float as in water

same thing happens in ground liquefaction in earthquakes
( water forced into ground makes it fluid)



pretty amazing

[frugalfred]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2185942/This-terrifying-moment-boy-11-stuck-THIGHS-quicksand-200m-shore-parents-watched-horror.html

[nailit]

Thank you for replies guys.

[Togo]

Not a myth nailit. On the local beaches here, the unwary regularly get into trouble at low tide. It is just the name coined by the movie makers, 'quicksand' that rings untrue. John Wayne never got sucked in did he?

[tamborine]

Hope the Thai was rewarded

https://youtu.be/Q_lnLKfnJ38

[Jonathan-Joe]

Isn't "quick" here used with its old meaning "alive"? And used long before the twentieth century. The same as "quicksilver" for mercury.

[frugalfred]

"and he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead" - Apostles' creed.

[nailit]

"and he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead"
Oh dear... ;-)

[Peter Pedant]

yes jay jay and eff eff
quick is used in this sense as 'alive'

and doan forget the Quicksilver Inn at the top of one of the hills at Yeovil which was celebrating the new coaching Royal Mail service ( coach and four ) from the west country to London. ( 15 mins for a meal at Ilminster I think )

[Peter Pedant]

in erm 1825

[nailit]

PP,
I would give anything to have just 5 minutes inside your head.

[Psybbo]

I'm sinking fast, Nailit :-)

[nailit]

grab a life jacket quick psybbo, you may need it...

[Togo]

You missed a chance there nails. You could have gone Pee Pee.

[nailit]

dont want to mock the afflicted Togo...

[nailit]

Not saying that PP's afflicted in any way but his posts are bloody hard to understand sometimes.
I actually get the feeling that PP is super intelligent and his posts are just above my own intelligence. (seriously)