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by barsonme 1572 days ago
Sweet water?
5 comments

Don't know where GP is from, but "Süß­was­ser", which translates to sweet water is the German term for water from lakes and rivers in comparison to salty water from the sea. Might be the same in related languages.
You are right. I meant fresh water. Sorry, it was midnight when I wrote that.
It's the same in Hebrew; there is sea water and sweet water.
Regular fresh water from the river passing through Ukraine into Crimea, which Ukraine blocked the flow of after Crimea was annexed.
I think he meant sweet as in precious. Fresh water for Crimea came from the mainland and Ukraine blocked it off after it was annexed.
Fun idea you got, but not exactly, in some european languages, "sweet water" refers to drinking water, as opposed to what would be "salt water", water from seas and oceans.
Acqua dolce in Italian is literally sweet water opposed to acqua salata, salt water. It's a common mistake to translate literally expressions and grammatical constructs from one's native language to a foreign language. I probably did it this reply without noticing it: it's long enough to contain some bug.
Potable water for drinking etc. The sea there is pretty salty, I think.
"Sweet water" is a common English-language (possibly "American old west") euphemism for fresh water.
Sweet tea maybe.. I've never heard "sweet water" but webster does have this,

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sweet%20water

> : a sugar solution

> especially : one obtained by recovery of waste sugar during refining

I would not say it's common: I'm a native (American) English speaker and I've never heard the word before! I would just guess it's some kind of flavored water before reading this thread.