The reason why Americans refer to Autumn as fall
学英语的人一般都知道，秋天有autumn和fall两种说法，只不过英国人一般把秋天叫作autumn，而美国人在指代秋天的时分常常会用另一个说法：fall（落下）。有的人认为autumn是传统说法，而fall是现代别称，其实fall的前史比autumn还要悠长。
September 23, 2019, marks the start of a new season—but what exactly you should call that season depends on where in the world you are and whom you ask. In Great Britain, the third season of the year usually has only one name: autumn. But if you hop across the Atlantic, you'll find that people use both fall and autumn interchangeably when referring to this time of year, making it the only season in the English language with two widely accepted names. So what is it about the season that makes it so special?
2019年9月23日（秋分）标志着新时节的开端，可是你应该怎么称号这个时节取决于你在世界上的哪个当地以及你问的是哪国人。在英国，一年的第三个时节一般都只要一个姓名：autumn。但假如你横跨大西洋，你会发现人们替换运用fall和autumn来指代秋天，所以秋天便成了英语中仅有一个具有两个广为承受的姓名的时节。那么是什么让这个时节如此特别呢？
According to Dictionary.com, fall isn't a modern nickname that followed the more traditional autumn. The two terms are actually first recorded within a few hundred years of each other.
依据词典网站，fall并不是秋天的传统说法autumn的现代别称。这两个说法最早的记载相距时刻不到几百年。
Before either word emerged in the lexicon, the season between summer and winter was known as harvest, or h?rfest in Old English. The word is of Germanic stock and meant "picking," "plucking," or "reaping," a nod to the act of gathering and preserving crops before winter.
在这两个词呈现之前，夏天和冬季之间的这个时节在英语中被称为harvest，古英语是hrfest。该词源于日耳曼语，意思是“采摘”或“收割”，指的是在冬季之前搜集和贮藏粮食。
In the 1500s, English speakers began referring to the seasons separating the cold and warm months as either the fall of the leaf or spring of the leaf, or fall and spring for short. Both terms were simple and evocative, but for some reason, only spring had staying power in Britain. By the end of the 1600s, autumn, from the French word autompne and the Latin autumnus, had overtaken fall as the standard British term for the third season.
在16世纪，以英语为母语的人开端用树叶的落下（简称fall）或成长（简称spring）来指代寒热两季之间的几个月。两个词都是既简略又形象，可是出于某种原因，只要spring在英国撒播了下来。到了17世纪末，源自法语autompne和拉丁语autumnus的autumn替代fall成为指代第三个时节的规范英国用词。
evocative:引发回想的；引起共鸣的
Around the same time England adopted autumn, the first-ever British American colonists were voyaging to North America. With them they brought the words fall and autumn, and while the former fell out of fashion overseas, it solidified itself in the local vernacular by the time America won its independence. Today, using both words to describe the season before winter is still a uniquely American behavior.
大约在英格兰人选用autumn来指代秋天的同一时刻，第一批去美国的英国殖民者开端漂洋过海到了北美。他们将fall和autumn带到了北美大陆，虽然前者fall在大洋彼岸现已不再盛行，可是它却在美国取得独立之前在当当地言中站稳了脚跟。现在，用两个词来指代冬季之前的这个时节仍然是美国独有的做法。
本文来历：中国日报 责任编辑：杨卉_NQ4978
