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Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC
Learning English. I'm Neil.
And I'm Georgina.
Can you swim, Georgina?
I can, Neil. I learned to swim as a child
and now I enjoy swimming for
exercise and to relax.
In the summer hundreds of keen
swimmers, like Georgina, head off to
swimming pools, lakes and beaches to
take a dip - an informal idiom meaning
'go for a swim'.
Swimming has many health benefits and
since ancient times has been used to
promote strength and wellbeing.
But swimming's not just about exercise -
there's far more to it beneath the surface
as we'll be finding out in this programme
on the history of swimming.
Although evidence suggests that ancient
Mediterranean people dived eagerly into
temple pleasure pools, lakes and the sea,
other cultures have 'swum against the tide' -
another swimming idiom there, Neil -
meaning 'not to follow what everyone
else is doing'.
Someone who did enjoy swimming was
the poet, Lord Byron. He wrote poems
popularising the sport and in 1810 swam
the Hellespont, a stretch of water
separating Europe from Asia. But in
which modern country can the Hellespont
be found - that's my quiz question,
Georgina. Is it:
a) Greece? b) Cyprus? or c) Turkey?
I think Lord Byron visited Istanbul,
so I'll say c) Turkey.
OK, we'll find out the answer at the end
of the programme. For all its good
points, swimming seems to have
lost its appeal in Europe after the
decline of the Roman Empire.
According to historian and swimming
enthusiast, Professor Kevin Dawson, the
rise of Christian beliefs discouraged
swimming, as he explains here to BBC
World Service programme, The Forum:
You have some beliefs that water is
this unsafe space, unnatural space for
human beings - that it's a perpetuation of
the chaos that existed before God
created land, or that water is
a mechanism for punishment like
the Great Flood story or pharaoh's
army being destroyed in the
Red Sea - but then there's also
beliefs that swimming is immodest -
most people at the time swam
nude and so church officials
discouraged swimming because
they felt that it lead
to immodest behaviour.
As well as being considered
unsafe or chaotic, swimming
was seen as immodest - shocking
because it shows too much
of the body.
This was because most people
at the time swam nude - naked,
without clothes.
Another place with a long history
of swimming is the remote Maldives
Islands in the Indian Ocean.
In the Maldives, access to shallow,
warm sea-water lakes called lagoons
makes it an unbeatable
place for swimming.
But even on a tropical island, things
haven't always gone swimmingly as diver
and Maldives resident, Mikael Rosen,
told BBC World Service programme,
The Forum:
Listen for the reason Mikael gives for
the change in people's attitudes to
swimming in the Maldives:
Most citizens of the Maldives have half
a mile to a lukewarm lagoon. Given that,
they could be world leaders in
swimming, but in the 1960s the
government recruited a lot of
teachers from India, Sri Lanka.
They didn't know anything about
the water culture and they noticed
that the young students playing
hooky - they were in the lagoons,
and swimming soon got frowned upon,
but now the government and
the local organisations - they
try to reclaim swimming.
Did you hear the reason
Mikael gave, Neil?
Yes, he said that young students
were playing hooky to go
swimming in the lagoons. Play
hooky is an informal way of
saying 'stay away from
school without permission'.
Right, and that meant swimming
quickly got frowned upon,
or disapproved of.
It seems a bit unfair since there
was already a strong culture of
swimming in the Maldives which
the arriving teachers didn't
fully appreciate.
Well, I know which I'd rather do - sit in
a classroom or swim in a
warm tropical lagoon!
Swimming, right? But then you
would never have learned
about Lord Byron.
Yes, in your quiz question you
asked me about Lord Byron
swimming the Hellespont, a stretch
of water separating Europe from Asia.
I asked you in which country the
Hellespont can be found. Is it:
a) Greece? b) Cyprus? or
c) Turkey? What did you say?
I said c) Turkey. Was I right?
Yes, you were, Georgina!
The Hellespont, also known as
the Straits of Dardanelles, is a
six-kilometre-wide stretch of
water in Turkey.
Let's recap the vocabulary from
this programme on swimming,
which some people informally
call taking a dip.
Someone who swims against
the tide refuses to do what
everyone else is doing.
In the past, swimming was
considered immodest - shocking
because it showed too much
of the body.
Another word for naked or not
wearing any clothes is nude.
Children who play hooky stay
away from school without permission.
And finally, if something is
'frowned upon' it's disapproved of.
That s all for our dive into the
deep end of the vocabulary of
swimming. As we've discovered,
there's plenty of idioms and
expressions relating to
swimming and water!
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Bye for now!
Goodbye!