I'm looking for an unobtrusive word to describe that moment when you dive into icy water and it feels as though your heart has switched rhythms. I've tried faltered, stuttered. It actually feels like it skips a beat but I don't like this off-the-peg phrase.

Has nayone had this experience and if so - how would you describe it?

Thanks

Susannah

Haven't had the experience, but how about 'stumbled'? Or 'missed a beat' is slightly less off the peg, perhaps?

Emma

How about using something that reflects the shock of the iciness of the water -

his heartbeat froze, shuddered

- not unobtrusive, though!
Susiex

fluttered, flickered, flitted, flittered, palpitated, quavered, quivered, shook, shivered, trembled, wobbled

<Added>

personally I like 'stuttered'.

It's maddening when the undeniably right word has so lost its bite that it's no use anymore, but sometimes you can get round the cliché by using it in a non-standard form.

Not,

'As he hit the water his heart skipped a beat'

but

'As he hit the water the heart-skip struck more coldly than ever'

or

'He dived. Between one heart beat and the next, the cold struck...

but please don't quote me, because they're both awful. But you see what I mean?

Emma

Thanks everyone. From Emma's 'stumbled' I got tripped, which is exactly what it feels like - like a trip-switch that momentarily turns your heart off and when it restarts it's in the wrong rhythm.

Thanks for all those lovely verbs. Phwoar, I love our language.

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crossed with Emma. 'Struck' is great in context too, because water that cold does feel like physical battery if you're not expecting it.

Clenched?

What about spasm? Not sure if that works as a verb, though.

It always feels to me as if my heart has actually stopped dead - the pause until it starts beating again can seem infinite! At the same time that my heart is *not* beating, my lungs are sucking in huge long gulps of air, and I'm often quite literally gasping for oxygen.

It's a brutal, animal feeling I think - like a little death followed by the immediate surge of adrenaline as your body screams at you to evacuate the water. Crushed, clenched, squeezed, pierced, crucified, wrenched, twisted...

I do actually love scuba diving in the UK in spite of this...

Yes, I would use tripped, personally.

You're all wrong. It's not stumbling, tripping or freezing. It's crushing. Any apparent heart stoppage is caused by overload as your extremities contract and your skin becomes a size smaller.

Aha. It may be, GC, but that's not how it feels. I'd argue it's wrong to say her heart crushed if it feels like it trips. If I tried to incorporate accuracy, e.g. her heart, crushed by the cold, felt like it tripped a beat, that's straying into authorial intrusion (or would be in the voice in which I'm writing, which is very close up 3rd person.)

You've raised another interesting point Gaius - the gaps and bridges between factual accuracy of fact and fictive authenticity. It's a delicate line...

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Katy, who sounds like she does it more than most, got that it was a crushing. That's interesting. Does it feel like a crushing to you Katy? It's only happened to me twice memorably,and it felt like a trip.

the gaps and bridges between factual accuracy of fact and fictive authenticity

The good news is that I have mastered the art of authorial authority... but I would hesitate to use my description as an accurate reference for the physiological symptoms of bradycardia. My experience of diving into very cold water is not a gentle "tripping of the heart" but an unpleasant shock resulting in almost complete cessation of all bodily and mental functioning for a clear second...

So... ah... maybe the water isn't as cold as that?

I'm remembering why I never go swimming if I can help it.

Emma

Actually no the water is as cold as that, and what you describe is how it's intended to come across - a total malfunction.I hadn't taken trip to be a gentle verb. To me it suggests a momentary physical failure.

Crushing, yes, or even a ripping open (contrary wise) and

an unpleasant shock resulting in almost complete cessation of all bodily and mental functioning for a clear second...

I'd agree with this too, except it is (or seems to be) for much, much longer than a second. It is raw and primeval, not exactly painful as such but much more elemental, like birth perhaps, or death. Your brain's 'flight or fight' reflex takes over with such an overwhelming force that it is quite disorientating.

Then a electric shock jolt, your heart re-starts and you tell yourself to breathe and calm down...

And then you go under

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I should say I'm talking about the effects of proper cold water here, 10 degrees celcius or less.

PS - no wonder folk die by falling into reservoirs and such...