If you are comfortable with silt, use it. It is correct. I think the average Joe would say mud for everything. I imagine I must have seen mud hundreds of times in my life when silt was meant.Ok, vase is quite common in French. So in English you say "mud" to refer to both boue and vase?
Silt is one of those words that you know well if you have to deal with a context in which there's a significant amount of silt. For example, if a river mouth or harbor is getting less deep because of accumulating silt, the people affected will know the word even if they are not experts at removing the silt.The only difference I might say is that silt, in my opinion, is a word rarely used, unless by experts. I think I learned it in some Earth Science class in High School in the context of the Mississippi River having a lot of it, forming islands of silt deposit... When I visited the area they called it mud, hence my confusion.
Dutch "slib" reminds me of English "slip":In Dutch "slib" is more precise, more specific, but "mud" might be more common.
What could be vaseux then, Yendred? Only people, I guess, tipsy or ... ? Correct? (We see pink elephants or we are foggy/ bathing/... in alcoholic fog (beneveld), above our theewater (tea water)...)Speaking of metaphorical uses, I should mention the adjective vaseux /vazø/ (from vase) = groggy, woozy, dozy...
Very interesting link! We have to watch the spelling well: to slip is slippen, like some kind of gliding, but aanslibben means more like wash ashore with the silt and stay there, dry up.Dutch "slib" reminds me of English "slip":
n.
- Ceramics a clay solution of creamy consistency for coating or decorating biscuit.
- Ceramics a glass-bearing liquid fired onto steel as a cladding, as in making enamelware.
- bef. 1000; Middle English slyppe, Old English slype semiliquid mass; compare slop1, cowslip, oxslip