Re: The English/French counting system (WAS: numbersystemsfromconlangs)
| From: | Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, September 17, 2003, 3:21 |
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Tristan McLeay wrote:
> So absolutely nothing, other than the fact that Americans saying 'fall'
> more often than not means Sept.--Nov. i.e. the time occupied by my spring,
> rather than my autumn.
But, I mean, it's exactly the same as dealing with time zones. My 12:00
isn't your 12:00, so why should it be any more confusing that my
fall/autumn isn't your fall/autumn?
> > And doesn't spring start on September *23* for you?
>
> I've never heard of that. Most definitely 1 September. We had a Dilbert
> calendar floating around last year: on 1 September, it had 'First day of
> Spring (southern hemisphere)' whereas on 23 (or whatever) September it had
> 'First day of Autumn (Northern Hemisphere)'
Very weird. If you count 1 September as "First day of spring (southern
hemisphere)" then shouldn't you count the very same day as "First day of
autumn (northern hemisphere)"? Or, conversely, 23 September being both
"First day of spring (southern hemisphere)" and "First day of autumn
(northern hemisphere)"?
> (As far as the weather is
> concerned, this year I would say the first day of spring was in mid
> August, but that may just be an illusion caused by a drought breaking at
> that time---Melbourne's wettest season is by far Spring, and until then I
> could probably have counted the times it rained this year on my fingers.)
Well, weather-based seasons depends on climate. :-) When I lived in
Florida, I always though of spring as a rather arbitrary, since down
there it's little more than a brief transitional period between the
pleasantly cool weather of winter and the unbearably hot weather of
summer. Leaves fall in Autumn, but trees don't lose all of their
leaves, they aren't even noticibly fewer, so there's no visible return
of leaves, and no drawn-out pleasantness.
--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'. Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42
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