As beloved as the crisp fall weather seems to be, English speakers haven’t always paid attention to it … at least not linguistically. Historically, the more extreme seasons have always been named — specifically winter, which was so important that it was used to mark the passage of time by the Anglo-Saxons, who counted their years in winters. But when English speakers of the past referred to summer’s end, they often used the term “harvest,” from the Old English (and ultimately Germanic) haerfest. The first recorded usage of “harvest” to mean a season appears in the 10th century, but the word didn’t stick around in common usage (it was considered outdated by the 1700s). It could be that it was just too confusing a term, considering it was used for both the time of year and the task of plucking crops from trees and fields.
Eventually, the English language began recognizing the transitional seasons. Spring was first known as “lent” or “lenten” in the 12th and 13th centuries, then “spryngyng time,” among other terms, around the 14th century. “Autumn” emerged around the 1300s, taken from the Latin autumnus and French autompne, and slowly pushing out “harvest.” “Fall” cropped up around the 1500s as part of “fall of the leaf,” mirroring the popular phrase “spring of the leaf” used for the vernal equinox, and it’s likely that these phrases were simply shortened to give the seasons their modern names. “Autumn” and “fall” have been used interchangeably ever since, with their popularity waxing and waning over time, though English speakers today primarily use one or the other based on their homeland. “Autumn” reigns supreme in the U.K., while most Americans typically use “fall.” The vocabulary variation harkens back to the Revolutionary period, when disgruntled colonists attempted to split both governmentally and culturally from the British, in part by modifying their speech. Less than 100 years after the U.S. declared independence, “fall” was considered an entirely American word, used in a young country that would go on to establish its own season-defining traditions, such as trick-or-treating and Thanksgiving dinners.
Media Release/Interesting Facts
