The Use of Words

Why do they(MSM & politicians & experts) call the disasterous event in the Gulf of Mexico a "spill?" The unimaginable amounts of oil and related materials are not "spilling" from an oil tanker or a ruptured storage tank. Would it make sense to call the volcano in Iceland that is upsetting airline flights an ash "spill?"
No.  What we have here is an eruption or a gusher, under very high pressure, from deep in the Earth. These materials were never in the hands of man before they burst out.
The non-surfaced, underwater oil they have just discovered is termed a "plume." That word belongs to an "eruption." When an oil rig explodes with force it is called a "gusher." Old Faithful is a gusher.
Does it make it appear to be less significant to call it a "spill?" There are multiple plumes at varying depths moving in unknown directions.  Like the ash in the atmosphere above the Atlantic and sometimes Europe it moves with the currents. 
Sometimes the human race (never mind what nation) seems very small and ineffective compared to the power of Mother Earth.

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