EIGO OR NO GO?

Is an "earthquake" necessarily large and destructive?

I'm in yet another SMACKDOWN with bucho over usage of the English language. This time he's arguing that I shouldn't say that Bear Origin was hit by a "large earthquake" because his precious dictionary claims that "earthquake" only refers to large destructive shaking (it uses the Hanshin quake as an example.) For smaller quakes you would use "tremor."

My opinion is that "earthquake" is an umbrella term that includes things like "tremor" or "tremblor." There's no assumption of strength in earthquake, it just refers to all seismic shaking, and I don't automatically assume damage if people just say "earthquake" out of context. I think that in this case leaving out the word "large" downplays the severity of the Bear Origin quake.

Thoughts?

Links you can find that I can print out and prove to bucho that he's mistaken?

I agree with you.

www.monitor.co.ug/artsculture/Reviews/Earthquake-or-tremor--What-s-the-difference-/691232-1912064-45l6ho/index.html I found this for it's worth.



I also found a couple definitions of "earthquake." One is: "a shaking of a part of the Earth's surface that often causes great damage" and the other is "a shaking or trembling of the earth that is volcanic or tectonic in origin."

It says the former is for "English language learners" so maybe this is where he is coming from but "often" doesn't mean ALWAYS.

nah CaptainSeery you stick to your guns on this one.

Oh, sorry - he wasn't saying to call it a tremor. He was saying that I didn't need the "large" modifier, because (to him) earthquakes are by definition large and destructive (while non-destructive ones would be "tremors."

I live in Bear Origin; I know very very very very well that it was absolutely not a "tremor."

I did find one site that said something about "if you live in a place with frequent earthquakes you might call small earthquakes tremors and reserve the word 'earthquake' for destructive ones." So I guess he's not entirely wrong. But I still think it's a huge oversimplification, and like you say language use varies by place to place. The audience of this particular speech is a bunch of Tasmanians, and I guess they do sometimes get quakes (http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Massive-earthquake-felt-in-Tasmania/2004/12/24/1103825056676.html) but even so better to be redundant than unclear.

I used the same example of Oklahoma's earthquakes to try to refute him, haha.

in 200m?

I think they should follow the national JIS standard for emergency sign making:
www.bousai.go.jp/kyoiku/zukigo/pdf/symbol_02.pdf

There is no へ　or to in English or Japanese. Just a big ass arrow and pictogram.

We're following this very precisely as it doesn't help anyone for each city to make it up themselves! Good luck.

i am trying to figure out another seasoning/ingredient like that that would differ in a way other than amount between home use and factory use

you could say "soy sauce made for use in various factory settings/applications"? "soy sauce for use by food (product) manufacturers"?

or something? i dunno

the bottom one

I think the sentence is too long, and I geuss that "look ahead towards" is kind of weird. Look ahead to/look forward to sounds better to me.

yeah i got you! i don't speak Japanese but i have been told that my English is "good"

Is illumination English? I forget. As in, 'On Saturday and Sunday nights the village will be lit up with illuminations'. I honestly can't remember.

"the village will hold a special light-up event" "have a seasonal nighttime illumination display" "will be specially lit up at night for..." are okay I think. We don't really do these kind of events so I think with a bit of explanatory text it sounds natural enough.