After all, nature does not divide the year into four distinct, equal-length seasons. The transformations in weather that we think of as seasons are continuous and part of a gradual shift as the earth moves on its axis. The only way to split this continuity into four discrete parts is to assign fairly arbitrary starting points.
Some countries choose the solstices/equinoxes. These at least have the benefit of being natural markers of time, even though they don’t necessarily correspond very well to the big changes in weather and temperature that we think about with the seasons. Other countries use the beginning of the month.
I really think that talking about the “start” and “finish” of the seasons is a sort of pointless exercise, for the most part. Terms like spring, summer, winter and fall are useful as general descriptors of a general time of year, but precision isn’t really necessary for their use.
Wouldn’t this simply be an example of the linguistic Zipf’s Law in action?
“Fall” is a shorter word than “Autumn”, so it would tend to replace the longer word.
Depends where you are. There’s no noticeable “Autumn” north of Tweed Heads, IMHO; you get “Summer” and “Not Summer”, unless you live Up North in which case it’s “The Wet Season” or “The Dry Season”.
But yeah, almost no-one here or in NZ refers to “Fall”, at least in my experience.
About 40 years ago, there arose in the US the notion that there were official starts of the seasons and these were on the soltices/equinoxes. Not sure how it got started, although likely from some almanac. It was promulgated mainly by TV weathermen.
It’s an erroneous notion, though. Congress never passed a law dictating the beginnings of the seasons. Nor, AFAIK, did any bureaucracy set a regulaton doing that.
Weatherpersons don’t use the word official in this context much these days. Despite that, it seems to have cemented the idea of when the seasons start in this country.
You know, the context of the conversation is important. I would never naturally say “fall”, but I might say “fall” if I was talking to Americans in acknowledgment of their usage. Perhaps an American might tend to say “autumn” when talking to the English.
Broomstick, all that shows is that you are not, in fact, a female (and apparently I’m gay.)
I grew up in Philadelphia and I would hardly ever say “autumn”. Maybe if I was talking of “autumn leaf displays”, but probably not. So I would say that use of “autumn” in a simple context is a pretty good indication that the speaker is not American (or Canadian). Universities never have an autumn term, only a fall term.
As for the season markers I learned in school that the seasons started at the equinoxes and solstices. Even if Congress has passed no law, that still seems pretty much official. But I just checked my calendar book and discovered, somewhat to my surprise, that although the solstices and equinoxes were listed, there was no claim as to when the seasons started.
There’s a Spanish legend where the Prince figures out the handsome young knight is a lady because when they’re playing at tossing a ball around, she opens her legs further in order to catch it (as if in a skirt) rather than closing them up.
Like yours, it doesn’t work unless both genders wear different clothes.
Mark Twain uses that when Huckleberry Finn is disguised as a girl wearing a dress and an old lady tosses something at him and he closes his legs to catch it.
I recall reading years ago that American English sometimes reflects the words in British use pre-1776. The subject of the OP was actually used as an example. “Fall” is the older term. When “Autumn” became more common in British English, the Americans weren’t around for it and the older term stuck.
Likewise, the article pointed out, when an American uses the word “mad,” he/she likely means the old British usage…angry. British English has evolved the word to also mean “insane.”
I remember that differently (maybe translation error?): The old lady gives Huck a heavy ball to throw against rats/mice in the corner, and he throws overhand (like a boy a baseball) rather than underhand (as girls are usually taught to).
Then she asks him if 15 cows are standing on a hill, where they are looking, he answers, all uphill, so she says he knows he really is a country boy, at least.
Whenever I see cows in the fields, they are looking everywhere they like (they are also not standing or lying all at the same time, unless it’s really, really hot at noon, then they lie in the shade).
I wrongly thought that only “fall” was used in the US, and that “autumn” would be familiar to Americans, if at all, as a Britishism. So I was very surprised when I heard a US TV weatherman refer to “autumn”. Now, having read this thread, it’s clear to me that both words are in use in the US. The converse is not true, however: “fall” is not used in Britain or Ireland.
It’s kinda like “Autumn” is the proper name (and the name that I learned in kindergarten), and everybody knows this; but “fall” is the nickname. This is quite different from the situation with lift/elavator.
[hijack]
If you can’t tell a man from a woman, and you don’t feel comfortable doing the Crocodile Dundee method, and he’s not wearing a dress so you can’t do the Tom Sawyer (or was in Huck Finn?) method, was to ask them to check their fingernails. Women will hold their hands out straight with their palms away from them. Men will curl their fingers in with their palms facing towards them.
[ETA: I really should have refreshed and read through before posting to a thread I opened yesterday.]
