Re: Earthquakes and epicentres

jerry_friedman@xxxxxxxxx wrote on Wed, 8 Apr 2009 09:54:42 -0700 (PDT):

On Apr 8, 10:15 am, "James Silverton" <not.jim.silver...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Roland wrote on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:03:27 -0400:

>>> Nowadays, of course, you get a lot more experience with
>>> journalists of the illiterate kind when listening to TV
>>> news and commentary. And the changes in language go on
>>> apace. I heard "tremblor" the other day, in a report
>>> about a fairly mild California quake.*
>> "Temblor" has been used in SoCal broadcast-journalese as a
>> general-purpose synonym of "earthquake" since time
>> immemorial.

Well, a long way back. The OED calls it "South Western U.S.",
says it is American Spanish and defines it as an earthquake.
A reference is given to B. Harte in 1876.

Pat was talking about "tRemblor".

It was one of the words he mentioned but I was qualifying "immemorial", as quoted immediately above.

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

.

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