zompist bboard

Well it means dying at sea and being thrown overboard, so yeah, maybe both.

'theory' may well be a similar word to 'metaphor' in that it has a somewhat different meaning as a technical term as compared to being an everyday word.

My mum says funny things like "Careful! I don't want you falling in the drink!" ... with "the drink" referring to whatever river or ocean I was playing perilously close to. I have a feeling this is not just a mummism but haven't googled it as I should actually be sleeping. In fact, I think she told me where her saying that comes from at one point when I was a kid ... her dad ... Ireland ... bus drivers ... I don't know.

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Glossing Abbreviations: COMP = comparative, C = complementiser, ACS / ICS = accessible / inaccessible, GDV = gerundive, SPEC / NSPC = specific / non-specific
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MY MUSIC

I've heard the term as a kid, as well, though not sure it was from my parents. Only pop culture reference I can think of is from the bridge of "Nobody Else But You" from A Goofy Movie, though given it's used by Goofy it might be intended to sound folksy or dated.

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"But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?”

I think I've seen something like "drink" being used to refer to a whirlpool in some kind of cartoon, possibly some Disney comic (Uncle Scrooge? Donald Duck?).

It's very common, yes. It's certainly used (or was used?) in the RAF, but I don't know whether it was their own invention. There is, for instance, apparently a book called "Shot down and in the drink" about the heroic exploits of RAF crew.

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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

The Atlantic Ocean is often called "the pond" as in the expression "across the pond", though I am not so sure I would call this poetic.

Another slang term for the sea is The Briny, due to salt content.

The most commonly used poetic word for sky in Chinese is "穹蒼" which means "dôme bleu" literally.