“ Fall is better on the merits than autumn, in every way: it is short, Saxon (like the other three season names), picturesque it reveals its derivation to every one who uses it, not to the scholar only, like autumn.” Autumn or fall: which is best?īrits may view many Americanisms as inferior, but few could disagree with H.E. The former is the informal, everyday choice the latter is mainly used in scientific, literary and poetic contexts. But English-speaking Canadians switch between fall and autumn. As you’d expect, Canadian Francophones use l’automne. However, naming the season between summer and winter isn’t quite so straightforward in Canada. This may well be because most of the indigenous trees in Australia are evergreens, so they don’t experience a lot of falling leaves. What about Australia and Canada?Īustralian writers tend to opt for autumn. We’re used to seeing fall mentioned in the media with reference to American television series or holidays to New England in the Fall. Autumn gained the upper hand in Britain to the extent that fall was eventually considered archaic.īut it is, at least, familiar to Brits today. Fall became the more common word in North America. In the 17 th century, English-speaking emigrants took both words with them to the New World. Arrival of autumnīy the 16 th century, autumn had been ‘borrowed’ from the French automne (itself derived from the Latin autumnus). These were shortened to the one-word form by the 17 th century, which was long before the development of AmE. Spring and fall initially appeared around the 16 th century as spring of the leaf and fall of the leaf (both the words spring and fall being Germanic in origin ). This eventually became relegated to a mere agricultural term. First it was harvest…Ī fascinating article on Slate reveals that back in the 12 th and 13 th centuries spring was called lent or lenten. The “third season of the year” was called harvest, as in “a time of reaping”. What I discovered was that although fall is now widely used in the U.S., the term is neither exclusively American nor American in origin. So now that autumn has officially begun, I thought I’d do a bit of delving. Yet we can’t seem to agree what to call this time of the year. We use w inter, spring and summer on both sides of the pond. While the meteorological calendar always places the beginning of autumn on September 1 and ending on November 30.One of the many differences between British English and American English that’s always intrigued me is autumn vs. Cornwall avoids summer Covid-19 spike despite influx of touristsĪutumn officially begins on September, 22 this year and ends on December, 21, according to the astronomical calendar.South West weather forecast 'as hot as Spain'.It also marks the time of year when the northern hemisphere begins to tilt away from the sun, resulting in less direct sunlight and consequently the cooling temperatures. "On the autumn equinox, day and night are of roughly equal length and the nights will become increasingly longer than the days, until the spring equinox when the pattern is reversed." "The earth's orbit around the sun means that in early January, the sun is closest (known as perihelion) and in early July it is most distant (aphelion). The Met Office describes these as follows: "The dates of the equinox and solstice aren't fixed due to the earth's elliptical orbit of the sun. They mark key stages in the astronomical cycle of the earth (all about the earth's axis and orbit around the sun). To put it simply, solstices and equinoxes are points of transition between seasons. The seasons are defined as spring (March, April, May), summer (June, July, August), autumn (September, October, November) and winter (December, January, February). Imagine how tricky things would get if we added an extra month to the year? This is done to coincide with our Georgian calendar and to make it simpler for forecasting, observation and comparing seasonal and monthly statistics. These consist of splitting the year into the four seasons - three months each. Meteorological seasons, however, are different. "Both equinoxes and solstices are related to the earth's orbit around the sun." The Met Office states: "The astronomical calendar determines the seasons due to the 23.5 degrees of tilt of the earth's rotational axis in relation to its orbit around the sun. When we talk about the very first day of autumn, or any season for that matter, the Met Office says that we are referring to the earth's axis and orbit around the sun - astronomical autumn. What are your favourite things to do in the Autumn months? (Image: Getty Images)
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