CHAT: The calendar

Tristan McLeay scripsit:

> Spring in Australia starts on 1 September and finishes on 30 November.
> (People stare at me in disbelief and might follow up with comments of
> Americans' stupidity if I mention you start your seasons around the
> soltices and equinoxes.) Sorry, I forgot to mention that, coming from
> Australia as I do, the seasons are switched.
Well, of course they are.  One might as well ask why you in the Southern
Hemisphere insist on celebrating Christmas in the middle of summer,
instead of moving the *nominal* date to 25 June so that it would be
a proper winter festival.  (And Rosta's theory is that this was the
settlers' attempt to pretend that they were still in Britain, No Matter
What.)

As for the equinoctial/solstitial dates, they are merely conventional.
Given that North America stretches over nearly 65 degrees of latitude,
it's hardly surprising that February on the Gulf Coast may be quite
springlike, botanically and meteorologically speaking, whereas for me
here in New York it's still the depths of winter.

My point is that while our fall may be your spring, the word "fall" is
never synonymous for us with the word "spring", whereas it is synonymous
with the word "autumn".

--
John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan      jcowan@reutershealth.com
Be yourself.  Especially do not feign a working knowledge of RDF where
no such knowledge exists.  Neither be cynical about RELAX NG; for in
the face of all aridity and disenchantment in the world of markup,
James Clark is as perennial as the grass.  --DeXiderata, Sean McGrath

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