I understand that, especially since I grew up in Pakistan. We just happen to operate in No countries where English is the dominant language other than the US, but English is the lingua franca and indeed the “official” language of communication. And in the other countries “autumn” rather than “fall” is used by non-native English speakers.
But our HQ folks who are predominantly NOT native English speakers, but whose English is WAY better than the average American’s certainly use “elevator pitch” at least but do say “lift” for the actual device.
There are lots of food words that are different in US English and the English used in (say) Chile, Thailand or Croatia. And since we are in the food business, that’s the most confusing thing. Croatian’s “biscuit” is quite different from an American’s.
Though of course our non-US colleague are also way better at NOT getting confused by our US centric language use. I think they are just generally more used to dealing with folks from other countries without expecting everyone else to accommodate THEM.
No. It’s not human nomenclature defining the seasons. It’s how nature defines the seasons, whatever they are called.
For example, take some gardening instructions.
Now those instructions are equally as applicable for gardeners in Europe, where the plants originated, as for gardeners in Australia. Australians plant jonquils in March-April and they flower in August-September.
If you were in Spain and you had some jonquil bulbs which you’d grown successfully in Australia and then planted them in March the locals would think you were an idiot. So anthropomorphically would the plants and the results would be poor. But if you left them in the ground, they’d burst into flower early in the next (European) spring.
My understanding is that jonquils don’t know that the month they flower is called September. But they do know that it was cold and now it getting warmer so it’s time to push out those buds.
Yes, it is us 'umans naming the seasons. It’s the wobbly rotation of the rock we live on, and its relationship to the sun that makes “seasons”. We can call them whatever we want, but those of us in the Northern Hemisphere chose to call the warm season Summer etc. (or whatever that translates to in the various languages. Because those Northern Hemisphereans settled Australia, it follows that they use the same terms.
I tried to avoid that trap: “those of us in the Northern Hemisphere chose to call the warm season Summer etc. (or whatever that translates to in the various languages.”
The OP revised their question a number of times and the last time was in post #26 where they acknowledged they had understood the (English) answer.
As in post #2 “Summer” is by definition the warmest month(s). Globally.
What locally we call that period, depending on the language is summer or birak or burran or the wet season, or verão or zomer or mevsim or été or mùa hè and is, as you say, arbitary.
