Particular names for the ocean

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

On Mon, 6 Dec 1999, Susan wrote:
>
> > Is there something written about why it is East Coast folks call the ocean
> > "the water" or "the shore," Southerners call the ocean "the beach," and
> > West Coast (California, Oregon, and Wash. State)  folks call the ocean
"the
> > ocean?" I have lived in all three places and this has always puzzled me.
> > Susan Gilbert >>

Everybody calls the ocean "the ocean."

Not everybody refers to 'making a pleasure trip to the land beside the ocean'
as "going to the ocean."

I've never heard this called "going to the water"--is that really used? By
whom?

Why should it be a source of puzzlement that dialects differ in the words
used for the same referent?