sawyl | A taxonomy of swimmers

I've mentioned this before, but swimmers can definitely be divided up according to a pseudo-Linaean method:

The Wet and the Dry. The highest level of classification. Used to deferentiate between those who enter the water and those who sit and watch from the seating area.
The Quick and the Dead. The highest level of the wet phylum, used to differentiate between those who swim and those who sit in the shallow-end and gossip in the belief that this means that they are fulfilling their doctor's instructions to take more exercise.
The Technical and the Atechnical. The highest level of the quick class, used to differentiate between the people who have a decent technique — or are, at least, aware of their own technical shortcomings — and those who remain largely unaware of, or are completely uninterested in, the technical aspects of swimming.
The Aware and the Unaware. This can be applied to both the technical and atechnical orders, and can be used to differentiate between those swimmers who are aware that there are other people around them and those who believe themselves to be alone in the pool, e.g. by failing to give way to other, faster swimmers. These two groups can be hard to separate in situations where their is little in the way of environmental stress, i.e. when the pool is relatively empty.
The Fast and the Slow. A simple way of splitting the families based on velocity. Note that this is not the same thing as stroke, although there may be a correlation.
The Laners and the Freers. A way of splitting the fast and slow based on whether they choose to swim in the lanes or in the main pool.
Stroke. The final split, which can vary over the duration of a swim.

It occurs to me that I've been probably spending far, far too much time at the pool of late...