Taking a tumble referring to something that is worsening is another common definition that I’ve read countless times in reference to something problematically decreasing, I’ve never heard or read “tumble” used until very recently to describe a situation in which something is rising. Have you?
“falling rapidly” would make perfect sense in many other situations. “Food storage tumbles, democracy tumbles, winter temperatures tumble”, etc. But nothing is falling, all of the temperature records are rising.
Summer temperatures are so high they tumble?
This is a genuine grammatical question. I’m not trying to detract from your answer or the article itself.
I’m just very confused by this usage of the word “tumble” that I’ve seen at least twice now to refer to rising temperatures.
But nothing is falling, all of the temperature records are rising.
I see what you’re saying. I had taken the use to mean the situation is tumbling, not the temperatures. But upon a closer reading (of the title specifically) it seems a more reasonable interpretation of the word tumble is:
Climate records tumble,
The object of the verb ‘tumble’ is “climate records”. That is, the climate records are tumbling. A tumbling record is one which has fallen over and been surpassed. So what they’re saying by using the word “tumble” is: previous climate records have fallen over and been surpassed.
I do agree it’s a weird word choice, but I don’t think it’s wrong or even playing on a potential uncommon secondary definition. It’s not saying temperatures have tumbled, but rather records have tumbled.
Oh. That must be where it’s from, the records specifically tumbling. As you say, weird, but not really wrong
Thank you. I believe the other headline was also talking about the heat. Maybe they were also talking about records.
It’s been tickling my brain for several days now and when I saw the used this way again I was like “Well that’s not going away until I get an answer” haha.
