September Roll Call 2017

[Niniel]

Autumn is almost here on my side of the globe. My question for you is what is the best with autumn? And can anyone tell me why there are two names in English - autumn and fall? 

 

 

 

 

The best thing for me is that it´s getting darker and colder. Then it´s much more accepted to stay inside under a blanket and read all day. :D

[Basel Gill]

American football season starts in just a few days. That is all.

[Dar'Jen Ab Owain]

What I like best about Autumn is the leaves change colors and the air tends to be crisper.

[Sooh]

Two names, British and American English. 

 

I like being inside in crappy weather, looking at the wind and having candles around me.

[Gentled Ben]

Two names, British and American English. 

 

I like being inside in crappy weather, looking at the wind and having candles around me.

I'm not sure about the English, but we use the terms interchangeably in America. I assume that Autumn is the older, more official name for the season. It sounds Latin to me, maybe because it is similar to August. Fall is probably some sort of nickname for the season rooted in the fact that the leaves fall from the trees in Autumn. I usually use the words like this: "I love Autumn; Autumn is my favorite season," and "I can't wait for the Fall when football starts again," or "I still think of the new year beginning in the Fall, because that's when the school year began when I was a kid. Autumn had more relevance to me as a child because of that. New Year's is just a cold day in the middle of the school year, halfway between school starting and my birthday, and somehow, to this day, I think of September as the start of the year."

 

I like Autumn best because of the colors and the soft, gentle change of the seasons. Spring in Denver is violent with lots of snowstorms lasting often into early May. Winter dies thrashing in convulsions, but summer goes gently to sleep in late October and doesn't wake up again until June. I love the rich windy weather. It's still warm outside but no longer oppressively hot, the skies are a vivid blue, the grass is still green, and the trees turn riotous colors. There is no other season like it. It is my favorite.

 

Also, /here.

[Sooh]

Autumn (British English) or fall (American English)^[1] is one of the four temperate seasons.

 

wikipedia

 

I don't doubt that both Brits and Americans use both terms, but traditionally I guess...

[WolfbrotherKronos]

Colors! And temperature! And Everything!

[Niniel]

Thanks for the English lesson. When I went to school I got to learn Brittish English, so I guess that is why I use Autumn. 

[Gentled Ben]

Autumn (British English) or fall (American English)^[1] is one of the four temperate seasons.

 

wikipedia

 

I don't doubt that both Brits and Americans use both terms, but traditionally I guess...

Interesting. I could see Fall being a term that Americans coined, but I assure you that we also use the term Autumn. I am not alone in that, nor do I believe it is a regional phenomenon restricted to my part of the country. Perhaps the English don't use Fall at all, though.

[Gentled Ben]

There are some actual differences in the two versions of English, but they generally fall under the categories of slang and spelling. Also, inflections are different, in that there is a tonal drop in British English when asking a question and a tonal rise in American English when asking the same question. Unless you are speaking in a slang-laden lingo of some sort, there is no difficulty in communicating between the two, though. At least not in general. There might be some confusion over chips, fries, biscuits, and cookies, but they are easily overcome, especially when an American would ask, "What's a crisp?" That should clear up a couple of things right there.

 

Canadians, being a sensible, refined people, speak American English. 

[Ithillian Turambar]

Yup. We don't use Fall at all. Autumn all the way. Also we still use equinox to change seasons, so technically it's still Summer till September 21

[Gentled Ben]

Sure, but it feels like Fall before then. It also feels and looks like Winter (in my city, at least) long before December 21st, so I generally think of Thanksgiving, at the end of November, as the beginning of winter, as by then, we are pretty much done with the warm days for the next few months. We will have some mild ones, but the 70s are gone.

[Basel Gill]

Canadians, being a sensible, refined people, speak American English.

 

But write with British spelling.

[Gentled Ben]

Crazy, huh? 

[Leyrann]

As for the start date of the sesaons, I'm like, should we use the system related to celestial objects or the system related to the weather, and then I'm immediately like, "yeah, lets ues the weather".

 

As for autumn vs fall, I use both... I guess that's my upbringing from the internet, where both are used.

 

And I like autumn because days are getting shorter so it's dark for longer and I have an easier time sleeping. Plus I love the quiet of the night.

[Leyrann]

Oh and thanks Nini for reminding me of the roll call.

[Songstress]

Oh and thanks Nini for reminding me of the roll call.

 

I coulda nagged you after I posted the Tainted Times

 

My favorite thing about autumn is that it FINALLY starts cooling down at night in Phoenix, to where I might actually get a tiny bit chilly if I go outside after dark in short sleeves.  Maybe.  By November I might need a light sweater.

[RandA lThor]

I'm with Basel.  Football is here.  And boy oh boy was that first game fun to see

[Gentled Ben]

An awesome game, but hard to watch because I hate both teams. I didn't like seeing Berry go down for the year, though. That dude's had nothing but bad luck, interspersed with being a warrior in real life and an All-Pro on the field. He deserves better than to be a Chief.

[Lessa Nikia]

That's the thing about Canada, we use both terms so often without thinking. I like that it's cooler and means winter is around the corner. Where I am we don't get the pretty colours usually. Most leaves turn yellow or brown. I think the crab apple trees are the only ones that are a bit red but they aren't everywhere. We have a lot of pine trees, where there are trees anyway, and I know out east (Ontario) has all the maple trees and others that are red and orange in the autumn.

[Shad_]

Cold + dark = happy Shad; this is the best time of the year
 

Before the 16th century, harvest was the term usually used to refer to the season, as it is common in other West Germanic languages to this day (cf. Dutch herfst, German Herbst and Scots hairst). However, as more people gradually moved from working the land to living in towns, the word harvest lost its reference to the time of year and came to refer only to the actual activity of reaping, and autumn, as well as fall, began to replace it as a reference to the season.[14][15]

The alternative word fall for the season traces its origins to old Germanic languages. The exact derivation is unclear, with the Old English fiæll or feallan and the Old Norse fall all being possible candidates. However, these words all have the meaning "to fall from a height" and are clearly derived either from a common root or from each other. The term came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year".[16]

During the 17th century, English emigration to the British colonies in North America was at its peak, and the new settlers took the English language with them. While the term fall gradually became obsolete in Britain, it became the more common term in North America.

I was going to say it was probably just the Germanic word for it, and yep.

We have two words for all kinds of stuff because of that. Usually one takes on a very mild distinction from the other, in ways that don't really alter what you're saying but might make you sound awkward to a native (American) speaker.  "Fall" is by far the most common word and also the most casual word for it.  "Autumn" is more formal.  We actually still use "harvest" too, but it usually implies an event.

 

So like, now that it feels like fall outside we can celebrate the coming of autumn with a harvest festival. 

[Shad_]

In general Germanic = informal Latin = formal.

 

Random note: foliage and fall have no common etymology.

[Shad_]

It's funny though because native speakers of Germanic languages always sound very formal in English.

 

Maybe if they taught you American English instead of British English you wouldn't have to learn half as many words.  >_>

[Ithillian Turambar]

You certainly wouldn't need to use as many letter Us.

[Panchi]

My staff is great

 

Autumn here. Fall is when you are being lazy or more descriptive.