I'm from the UK, and North Americans share three names for their seasons with us (Winter, spring and summer), but what we call autumn is called the Fall, what are the origins of this?

Thanks, I didn't realise it was also called autumn there too.

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by Sid on January 18th, 2009

Thanks, it's interesting that Fall is much older than I had thought, and pre-dates the colonisation of North America by English speakers, I though it was relatively modern.

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by Sid on May 24th, 2009

yes - I thought so too - so if it is old, it could be one of the words that went over there with the settlers, but died out here - like "gotten"

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by dea_ex_machina on May 24th, 2009

I actually use gotten sometimes, perhaps it is a regional thing, or a Scottish thing. I was watching something on You Tube yesterday with two people explaining the differences between American English and British English, and for many things I was closer to the American bloke than the British (English) bloke in my pronounciations, so their little film wasn't entirely correct. For instance they said the British don't pronounce their Rs in words like farmer (fahma), lawyer (lawya) etc. but I certainly do, and I associate that in my mind with a Boston type accent.

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by Sid on May 24th, 2009

you are right - there are many similarities between UK and US english - especially when you look at regional vocab - I am from northern ireland - there are items of vocab there which are shakespearean - they never disappeared in ireland, whereas they did in other parts of the UK. I find the transition of english fascinating - the english that went out to america was an english of a time - initially the english of southern england - not scotland, or wales, just southern england. Think about the original settlers - from Norfolk/Suffolk via Devon - now those are the two parts of England where the typical "local yokel" has an elongated vowel drawl - just like the american accent!
Incidentally - in NI, when it is very cold, one might say: "I a starving with cold" - the word "starve" of course comes from German (sterben) via Dutch (sterven) and means to die - so the meaning of the word has changed to mean 'to be very hungry' but the original usage is still used in NI

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by dea_ex_machina on May 24th, 2009

Starving is occasionally used here to mean cold, but that is dying out and is usually used to mean hungry nowadays. It was funny reading the comments underneath the little film, with British people saying the American pronounciation was wrong, when of course there is no right or wrong, language changes and adapts as you say over time and distance.

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by Sid on May 24th, 2009

I thought it might be used there too (starving) - in NI it is used predominitely in Antrim - the Ulster Scots links are strong there

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by dea_ex_machina on May 24th, 2009

I did wonder if that might be the reason behind it but that was just me guessing, thanks.

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by Sid on January 18th, 2009