However, in the end the Fowlers warned that it was too late. In The King’s English, the Fowler brothers counseled against Americanisms, but expressed envy over fall:įall 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. Fall hasn’t ever had quite as much currency in the United Kingdom as it has stateside-even though some Brits concede that North Americans have the superior term. In fact one of the Oxford English Dictionary’s first citations of fall comes from Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the first English explorers of North America: In his poem “ The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” he uses the word to contrast with spring. The rise of autumn and the appearance of fall happened around the same time as the British arrival on the American continent, and it’s there that the latter really caught on. It’s a bit of a mystery why the superfluous autumn persists while analogous words like primetemps and ver have fallen out of use, but it may have something to do with the Atlantic Ocean. In the 17 th and 18 th centuries, dictionaries by both Thomas Blount and Samuel Johnson noted that some thought that fall began in August and ended in November, while others contested that it began in September (at the equinox) and ended in December (with the solstice). Even when they spoke of fall, they couldn’t agree when, exactly, it took place. As late as the 18 th century, English speakers were less likely to think of the year as having four seasons, focusing instead on the coldest and warmest portions of the year. This is partly because the two seasons were long viewed as secondary to summer and winter. While the modern names of winter and summer have been around for more than 1,000 years, the names of fall and spring are more recent-and less constant. It’s the first week of fall-or perhaps I should say “autumn.” How did autumn become the only season with two names?īefore it was autumn and fall, it was harvest. We’ve reprinted the post for the first day of the season, below.
This article originally appeared in the fall/autumn of 2012.