Comments on: Temblor

By: Jeff B

Jeff B — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:02:39 +0000

Temblor comes from the Spanish “temblor” which means tremor. (It’s a noun. There is also a verb “temblar,” but we borrowed the NOUN “temblor”)

Why? We already have a perfectly good word: “TREMOR.”

Seems like some idiots are trying to impress someone with their high school Spanish.

I’m not impressed. Now, if we adopted the Icelandic word for tremor, that would be just as stupid, but far more impressive.

By: Patrick Wise

Patrick Wise — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 01:19:51 +0000

I’ve always liked the way temblor looked and sounded; kind of warm, almost liquid, the way it rolls off the tongue. By context, they seem interchangeable, but I would use temblor to describe a more rolling, vibraty quake, and tremor for the more forceful, jerky kind. Just an aesthetic choice, but valid, I believe.

By: Michael of Earthquake Territory

Michael of Earthquake Territory — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 20:06:48 +0000

Ditto on Steve’s opinion and feelings. Having not succumbed to an Earthquake in my many years since birth I now refer to them as simply ‘quakes’. It’s got to be a really heartedly felt temblor for me to use the full word Earthquake.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:22:24 +0000

The use of temblor is annoying (to me.) We have a perfectly good word… earthquake… and don’t need another one.

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:40:03 +0000

CRM says “”Tremblor” is a nonsense word that idiots made up,” and then goes on to misuse the source term. Ahem. “Temblor” and “trembler” are both used as newsdesk slang for earthquake, but in American scientific usage, “temblor” refers only to a single measurable vibration in an earthquake. Using the term “temblor” to refer to a the whole composite event of an earthquake, aftershock, or similar is specifically incorrect. However, though it too is redundant, “trembler” or “tremblor” has a common English root and doesn’t sound quite so illiterate as to borrow a near-identical word from Spanish for an entirely redundant meaning and reduction in precision… and then misspell it.

By: CRM

CRM — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:52:35 +0000

Sigh…there’s a reason our language is interesting, and that is because it draws from other languages. “Tremblor” is a nonsense word that idiots made up because they didn’t understand its derivation from a Spanish term. So, they decided to make up a replacement word that sounds like “tremble”.

“Temblor” is the proper word in English, borrowed from “temblar” in Spanish. It is these borrowed words that give English its class and distinction.

It doesn’t matter that the ground doesn’t “temble”.

By: Metoo

Metoo — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:42:44 +0000

I’m with Annoyed. I hate the word. We “tremble” here in the US, we don’t “temble.” It irritates the hell out of me.

I think I’ll write someone.

By: Annoyed

Annoyed — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:44:48 +0000

To me, it makes more sense to use the word “tremblor”. Does the ground ‘tremble” or “temble” during an earthquake? See what I’m getting at? So in my opinion, “temblor” doesn’t sound right or make any sense and I wish the media would stop using it and go back to “tremblor”. I’m just sayin…..

By: Sis Caudle

Sis Caudle — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:19:47 +0000

Dear Word Detective:

I have also come here to find out what the “new” word “temblor” referred to. Was it a bit smaller than the word I was accustomed to – “tremor”? a bit larger? Did it shake differently than a tremor? Hmmm. No? Just another word for the same ol’ thing? I see.

(Correction: “He was not fond of the second edition, which he felt had compromised his work, but though[t] highly of the third edition.)

While I have nothing more to say of changing words just for the fun of it, I did want to say that I grew up in S. California and, besides our share of “temblors”, we also dealt with June bugs – UGH! To my knowledge we did not have cicadas, tho’. ;-)

By: Fernando

Fernando — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 21:11:43 +0000

Both “temblor” and “tornado” are Spanish words. I find it interesting that now the word Tornado is preferred in English for that atmospheric phenomenon. Watching the 1930 film The Wizard of Oz, it seems that back then the word of choice was still “cyclone,”which, by the way, is rendered as ciclón, in Spanish. Furthermore, Wikipedia tells us that the same phenomenon is these days called a “hurricane” in the Atlantic and a “cyclon” in the Pacific, so it seems that the term has specialized in meaning, and now Tornado has replaced it for inland use.