[Tagging] Mapping cave tunnels passable by human

[SomeoneElse]

On 14/08/2014 12:18, Dan S wrote:
> 2014-08-14 12:01 GMT+01:00 Friedrich Volkmann <bsd at volki.at>:
>> ...
>> I am not sure about English terminology. In German, we call natural cavities
>> "Höhlen" (caves), and artificial cavities "Stollen" (adits?). A straight
>> "Stollen" with an entrance on each end is a "Tunnel" (tunnel). I think that
>> the meaning of the English word "tunnel" is just the same as in German. In
>> that case, tunnels and caves are mutually exclusive.
> Not in my native opinion, but let's see what other natives think too.

Sometimes I think that it's a real shame that OSM didn't start in 
Germany - it'd much easier to be _precise_ about some things.

The word "adit" is rarely if ever used in common parlance - locally to 
me (Derbyshire, England) it's usually used to describe mineworking 
drainage tunnels.  Wikipedia (1) suggests a more general use for 
horizontal shafts (for e.g. into a drift mine) but I'm not familiar with 
that usage (and there are many mineworkings very local to me, including 
one major former drift mine).  It certainly doesn't refer to all 
artificial cavities.

It's also worth bearing in mind that whatever word you use there isn't a 
simple distinction between "natural" and "artificial" caverns - many 
early mineworkings were extensions of natural cave systems (and cavers 
also sometimes "extend" natural systems to connect them and allow 
further exploration).

Cheers,

Andy



(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adit