Most people are well aware of the fact that English and American are two different languages. Amazon.com and the WWW are full of dictionaries and lists pointing out the different meanings of words like “pavement”, “boot”, “fanny”, and so forth. But one thing that is rarely mentioned is the difference in meaning of the words that identify the seasons of the year. And I’m not just talking about “fall” vs. “autumn”. For example, Alec just blogged
By this evening, winter will be half-over and the days will begin to lengthen in the northern hemisphere once more!
In both England and America, the seasons are defined by the equinoxes and solstices. However in the US, a season begins with the event in question, while in England the season is (approximately) centred on the event. At my primary school (Braintcroft, in London NW2), I was taught:
- Winter: December, January, February
- Spring: March, April, May
- Summer: June, July, August
- Autumn: September, October, November
Most of the time the difference is innocuous, but occasionally it causes confusion. For example, I was on a conference call yesterday which included Sun engineers from the US, UK, and other countries. Alec (again!) asked when the next meeting was due to take place, because he was concerned that the schedule was drifting: yesterday’s meeting had been advertised as the “Fall Review” and it had slipped into winter. Nobody remarked upon this at the time. I wonder how many of the people on the call realized that yesterday (December 20) was both the middle of winter for the English and the last day of fall for the Americans.
And then of course there are the Aussies…..