“The mermaid is a hybrid beast.” Unlike other forms of mythological hybridity, humans have split crossroads when it comes to interpreting these beasts. Do they impart knowledge? Are they friendly? Deadly? Sexual? Unassuming? Just curious? In an interesting analysis, Steve Mentz finds that interpreting shape-shifting clouds “essentially follows a hybridizing theory of interpreting forms of water… about how vaporous forms assume multiple meanings… The challenge is devising a language to understand their forms”. As hybridized water beings, mermaids are vaporous. That is, they are vague, and lacking in clarity. Like hazy clouds, interpretation of mermaids shape-shift throughout time and place. Their soaked and shrouded dwellings cultivate a sense of mystery. We humans are apt to judge. Clothes, cars, houses. We gain a sense of constancy knowing what kind of person we encounter based on their address. So, an ability to construct mermaids into a coercing presence comes from their watery lodgings; able to assume multiple meanings. The church can depict them demonically or hyper-sexualized, myths can represent beings to overcome or avoid, pop culture can take their voices. These representations help push an agenda that is difficult to object when we are wrestling to grasp an interpretation of water, let alone an interpretation of these hydrobeings. Furthermore, examining Mentz’s grappling with the interpretation of the forms of water, he states: “The challenge is devising a language to understand their forms.” Mentz has faced this challenge head on in his preface to his book Ocean. He impels to manipulate the use of terracentral language: changing the word field to current, or state to ship. When we use these words, among others, we stop tethering ourselves to land. Water, in all its forms, becomes less threatening and more of an everyday interaction. This change of language changes our relationship to planetary water, consequently, changing our relationship to the beings that inhabit it. I can’t help wondering, what our merbeing myths would hold now if we had the relationship we have with water today, hundreds or even thousands of years ago.