What defines an island

At first I thought you were right when I read this definition of a floating island…
floating island - A dessert of soft custard with mounds of beaten egg whites or whipped cream floating on its surface.
Then I found the following link and it appears that your friend may be correct at least according to answers.com
http://www.answers.com/topic/floating-island
Floating artificial islands are generally made of bundled reeds, and the best known examples are those of the Uros people of Lake Titikaka, Peru, who build their villages upon what are in effect huge rafts of bundled totora reeds. The Uros originally created their islands to prevent attacks by their more aggressive neighbours, the Incas and Collas.

But an even more important question - how the heck is Rhode Island an island?

I don't know, Linkat. I'm not sure I'd agree that those floating rafts of the Uros could be defined as 'islands,' at least not in the parlance of professional geographers. The usual definition of an island is a body of land, usually smaller than a continent, completely surrounded by water. Islands are hills on the ocean (or sea or lake or pond or river or any other body of water) floor. It isn't just "attached to the earth someohow" -- it is a part of the earth's surface. A "floating island" is a contradiction of terms. You can call a large raft with landscaping an island, if you wish, but it's not an accurate description. True artificial islands are created by dumping a quantity of soil, stone, gravel etc. into a body of water so that water level rises but a large amount of the substance dumped is still above the water. Or, conversely, a valley may be flooded, leaving a huilltop above the waterline. Now the hill is an island.

I said that an island is a tract of land, "usually smaller than a continent." Usually because there is at least one exception to this rule -- Australia, which is described as both the world's largest island and world's smallest continent.

I used to think that George Jenkins, down the street a piece, was an island, but then that age-old adage about no man being an island popped into my head and I had to reconsider.

I guess George would be more of a peninsula.

It isn't, of course. That's a case of a classic misnomer. The area was named by a Dutch sea captain who, apprently, never set foot ashore. From his vantage point on shipboard it looked like the whole thing was surrounded by water (don't what brand of gin he'd been drinking) so he named it Red Island (rhode=red). The name was so entered on some mariners' maps and it stuck.

Hey Merry, I didn't make it up. Do a quick search for definition of floating island and there are several websites that have this type of definition. Also in a kitchen you can have an island - something even without water. There any many accepted definitions of island - not just the one we are most familiar with.

I suppose if you asked for the geographic definition of water, then I would agree with you.

I do like your insightful information about Rhode Island though. I can't believe we kept the name simply because of some drunk

The full official name of the state is ""State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations".

Andrew's response is one of the claimed origins for the name. The "more official" explanation is that Giovanni da Verrazzano named it for the similarities between Block Island and the Isle of Rhodes in the Med.

But the "How is Rhode Isalnd and Island" question is that it isn't. It's comprised of several islands and the "and Providence Plantations" part (which incorporates the rest of the state) just gets dropped/ignored.