There is a water leak in the ship.
A native speaker told me that the above example is unidiomatic. Why is it not idiomatic to use the above example?
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'Water' is superfluous. Given the nature of ships, it would be sufficient to say 'There is a leak in the ship'. Even more accurately, it might be better to say 'There is a leak in the hull' (or other part of the vessel).– JMBCommented Mar 19, 2021 at 14:42
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@AydenFerguson "Leakage" is probably not the word you want. It refers to a process in which a fluid slowly moves to somewhere we don't want it to be. If water gets into a ship by migrating through wood or dripping in through imperfectly sealed rivet holes, that is "leakage". We can say "the leakage is 10 gallons a day". Saying "a leakage" makes no sense, that would be like "a sunshine".– David42Commented Mar 19, 2021 at 15:10
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2 Answers
The native speaker OP dealt with was mistaken. It's probably true that we're more likely to say The ship has a leak, but it's perfectly natural to say that there's a leak in the [leaking] vessel - regardless of whether that "vessel" is a watercraft (a boat, ship) or a container (a tank, bottle).
Here are hundreds of written references to a leak in the tank, for example - and a leak in the boat.
Note that we wouldn't normally include the word water if we meant that sea or river water was leaking into the ship, so arguably if it is included, people might assume some less "obvious" meaning (a leak in the "internal plumbing" of the crew's living quarters, perhaps).
answered Mar 19, 2021 at 14:47
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You can (it's syntactically "valid"), but it's not really idiomatic. As I pointed out in the answer, we're more likely to say This ship has a leak. Or perhaps just This ship leaks. Commented Mar 19, 2021 at 15:03
It's not unidiomatic, it's puzzling.
That's to say, it's not clear what the speaker means to say.
Does the speaker mean that water is leaking into the ship, out of the ship or within the ship? The statement makes none of these clear.
Most often, where ships are concerned, mention of a leak implies that water is leaking into the ship as a result of a hole or crack in the hull. Typically, someone would say: There's a leak or Water is leaking into the ship. If the leak was really serious: The ship is leaking/taking on water.
If a pipe has broken somewhere in the ship, you would say that water is leaking out of a pipe into a cabin or the hold or engine room - or where-ever.
So the problem with the statement is the lack of clarity.
answered Mar 19, 2021 at 14:43
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1I agree is it unclear. As a native speaker of American English I would probably take the statement to mean that a pipe somewhere inside the ship is leaking water (as opposed to say steam or oil). In contrast "there is a leak in the ship" probably means that there is a small hole in the hull.– David42Commented Mar 19, 2021 at 14:47