Skimming stones vs skipping stones?

Question

I heard someone talked about "skimming stones" but read in a book about "stone skipping".

Is one from the US and the other from the UK ? Is there any difference or do they have the exact same meaning ?

Answer 1

They mean the same, but there's a significant US/UK split. Here's the US usage...

...and here's the UK usage...

But whereas I personally would invariably refer to the activity itself as skimming stones, I see nothing unusual in this BBC piece from a few years ago...

How do you skim a stone 51 times?
Russell "Rock Bottom" Byars has skimmed his way into the record books, throwing a stone that skipped an amazing 51 times.

I would always say the pastime (what the person does) is skimming, but to me it's perfectly reasonable to refer to what the stone does as skipping (and to call each bounce a skip, not a skim).

Answer 2

They are the same.

skimming stones: to throw in a smooth, gliding path over or near a surface, or so as to bounce or ricochet along a surface:

...skimmed a stone across the lake.

skipping stones:to ricochet or bounce along a surface:

The stone skipped over the lake.

North America: "skipping rocks" or "skipping stones" (Wiki)

Answer 3

We use the term SKIMMING in Australia. Skipping stones doesn't sound right to an Australian Ear.

Yana

Answer 4

The word skip was used in The Dam Busters (1955), to refer to a bomb skipping over the water

In the early years of the Second World War, aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis is struggling to develop a means of attacking Germany's dams in the hope of crippling German heavy industry. Working for the Ministry of Aircraft Production, as well as doing his own job at Vickers, he works feverishly to make practical his theory of a bouncing bomb which would skip over the water to avoid protective torpedo nets. (emphasis added)

Other answers have made it clear that either skim or skip can be used for mere stones, but for bombs, it's skip-bombing.

Answer 5

When I was a child in Norfolk in the 1940s/50s we talked about playing 'ducks and drakes'. I still call it that and am glad to see that Wiktionary recognises it.

But the whole question of assigning expressions as American or British is I believe fundamentally flawed. It seems to me that in Britain we are far less inclined to name things. In America it would appear that almost every practice has an official name. I once explained to an American that we had been out in the car and had taken some food to eat. 'Ah, you had a tail-gate picnic', he said. So in the USA even such a random practice as sitting on the rear bumper of your car eating a sandwich means you are doing something which has an official name assigned to it. I actually find this slightly claustrophobic.

Sometimes, when in America, I will use an expression which has just come into my head from nowhere and someone will say 'Oh, so that's what you say in Britain is it' - Er, no, it is just what I said 30 seconds ago!