At the atomic level it is very different that’s why service tension is a thing.
Water forms hydrogen bonds with other water molecules but it won’t form hydrogen bonds with oxygen (under normal temperatures) molecules. So under the surface water is bonded to other water on all sides. But on the surface it’s only bonded to water below it under the sides, above it is unbonded. When water makes something wet it doesn’t bond to that thing so they’re still separate elements, but the surface of the water is making a barrier between itself and the bonded water. Resulting in different properties.
Assuming we are not compressing it, you cannot fit more water into water. Therefore, water is saturated with itself. Therefore, it is soaked. Therefore, it is wet.
I would count a grouping of water as having absorbed itself personally. But either way, it technically can’t absorb any more water, so it is always at the absorption max, whether that’s 0% or 100% water.
Seems you added a word to the definition that just so happens to be the one word your entire argument rests on.
Isn’t all the water below the surface layer covered with a liquid?
I can’t think of a compelling reason to treat the water on the surface as a distinct entity, though.
At the atomic level it is very different that’s why service tension is a thing.
Water forms hydrogen bonds with other water molecules but it won’t form hydrogen bonds with oxygen (under normal temperatures) molecules. So under the surface water is bonded to other water on all sides. But on the surface it’s only bonded to water below it under the sides, above it is unbonded. When water makes something wet it doesn’t bond to that thing so they’re still separate elements, but the surface of the water is making a barrier between itself and the bonded water. Resulting in different properties.
It seems to me that being bonded, at all, to other molecules, is a better criteria for being “the same thing”.
Counterpoint: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wet
This is the full definition of that website:
Pfft! 'Tis clearly biased propaganda to perpetuate the water is wet agenda and I will not tolerate it!
I would say this still works.
Assuming we are not compressing it, you cannot fit more water into water. Therefore, water is saturated with itself. Therefore, it is soaked. Therefore, it is wet.
Water can’t absorb neither moisture nor water so it can’t be holding as much of either as can be absorbed.
I would count a grouping of water as having absorbed itself personally. But either way, it technically can’t absorb any more water, so it is always at the absorption max, whether that’s 0% or 100% water.
I’m prepared to admit water is wet if you’re prepared to admit every non-absorbent material is perpetually wet since it can’t absorb any more water.