Hi Guys, I was just reading about the earthquake in Hawaii (Thank Heavens everyone came through that OK!!). The word "temblor" was used (which my Webster's say means to tremble) and I realized that the only time I see the word used is when reading about earthquakes. Do any of your geology folks know how or why the word developed? I'm thinking maybe it was developed specifically to describe earth trembles as a result of an earthquake but I don't know that for sure. Origins of words have always fascinated MOI so I thought I would ask. I'm sure we have at least ONE geologist in the group :-)! CiaoMeow >^;;^<
OT: ? for our Geology &/or Language experts
Oct 16, 2006
12 Replies
I'm wondering why "they" just don't use tremblor (should that be er)? I could see everyone using temblor because that's almost exactly the Spanish spelling. So now I am *really* wondering just WHY there is a need for two almost identical words that mean the same thing! Becky -- do you know if temblor is used exclusively in a geological sense? If so, I can see that -- special word for special circumstances. CiaoMeow >^;;^<
PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at
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Marg
Well, that makes perfect sense to MOI since tremble or tremblor is the word most of us are familiar with. It's the use of the word temblor
-- NO letter R but virtually the exact same definition -- when talking about earthquakes that has me curious! Very interesting, at least to MOI :-)! CiaoMeow >^;;^<
PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at
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Alison
Thanks Becky, that brought back memories and a good giggle. I spent two years as a Geology major at university before switching over to Physics. Nothing useful to add to the topic itself, I just wanted to say thanks for the much needed giggle.
Heather in NY
I have a degree in geology and don't remember seeing that term. According to my dictionary, it's been around for a while, but I don't think it was being used much in the 70's - I think it's more recent than that.
Talking of earthquakes, tho, we had 2 of them today in Winston-Salem. One at 4 am and one at 9 pm. The first woke me up, the second got a "Wow! That was neat!". I actually felt it travelling east to west! It shook the walls a bit, but that's all. I don't think I'd want to be in a stronger one, tho.
Awwwww, what cute itty-bitty earthquakes!
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MAG UTC DATE-TIME y/m/d h:m:s LAT deg LON deg DEPTH km LOCATION
2.4 2006/10/18 01:11:00 36.079 -80.213 5.0 5 km ( 3 mi) ESE of Winston-Salem, NC
1.5 2006/10/17 23:54:49 36.088 -80.331 5.0 7 km ( 4 mi) WSW of Winston-Salem, NC
2.6 2006/10/17 08:56:30 36.117 -80.216 5.0 4 km ( 3 mi) ENE of Winston-Salem, NCI'm an insensitive clod. I don't feel anything under a 5 and even then I've got to be practically on top of it. :) (Then again, California has had 285 of them this past week, so if we felt every little onesie-twosie, we'd go nutsie!)
OY -- I've misspelled it :-)! There are two almost identical words that means the same thing -- trembler (which we all know relates to shaking) and temblor which also means to tremble or shake but I have only seen it used when talking about earthquakes. CiaoMeow >^;;^<
PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at
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Ericka Kammerer wrote: Snipped lots of great info.... > ..... a quick Google
Oh Ericka -- thanks so much for finding this stuff:-)! This info is exactly what I was interested in learning :-)! It's odd -- to MOI at least -- that I grew up in a suburb of LaLa Land and always thought people were talking about a trembler when discussing earthquakes. I was quite surprised when I realized that most of the time, the word used was temblor! The use of temblor makes sense -- SoCal is so heavily populated by Hispanics that a lot of both languages are intermixed. Unfortunately, I'm just not comfortable using the term so I will still say trembler when discussing earthquakes. Then again, from the info you found, both terms are OK to use. It also seems that temblor is used exclusively for earthquakes. Thanks again & CiaoMeow >^;;^<
PAX, Tia Mary >^;;^< (RCTQ Queen of Kitties) Angels can't show their wings on earth but nothing was ever said about their whiskers! Visit my Photo albums at
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George (given name Jorge)
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