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Best thing about moving to the US was that all those phrases "coming summer 2019" actually make sense! In Australia we don't really use seasons as references (t

Best thing about moving to the US was that all those phrases "coming summer 2019" actually make sense! In Australia we don't really use seasons as references (the seasons aren't as distinct as they are here) - and because they were then flipped as well I never really thought they had a real meaning. I guess I must have known they did have a real meaning, but my "consumer" grasp of them was more like vague marketing fluff that meant "will probably be out eventually"!

edanm 8y ago
What a brilliant observation, I love finding things like that where you never really thought consciously about something. I'm similar to you, though I don't even have the excuse of living with different seasons - I just never really thought about it.
- foobarbazetc 8y ago
  As an also-Australian, my brain just doesn’t process seasons like Americans. If someone says “coming in the Spring” I literally have no idea when that is. The dates of seasons are meaningless.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    As a Polish person, my brain hates these too, even though we have proper seasons here. When I see "coming in the Spring", my mind is all "that's 20-ish of March, I think... or maybe April... no, December is definitely winter, so it must be March!". Seasons are dumb. I remember reading a rant on the Internet once that advocated that we should recognize two seasons - summer and winter. You could put the boundary at equinoxes, with summer encompassing both traditional summer and spring, and winter encompassing traditional autumn and winter. The definition would be simple: summer is when it's kind of warm most of the time, winter is when it's kind of cold most of the time. I remember this resonating with me much more than the traditional definition. Going back to temporal coordinates, the older I get the more confident I am in feeling that, for terrestrial use, anything that's not an ISO 8601 date is garbage and should not be used.
    - deleted 8y ago
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    - Izkata 8y ago
      > and winter encompassing traditional autumn and winter. The definition would be simple: summer is when it's kind of warm most of the time, winter is when it's kind of cold most of the time. At least in the part of the US I'm from, we only used "Fall" for "Autumn", because colloquially it was already defined as a simple and pretty tight (but often slightly different each year) period: When the leaves on trees have changed color, but not yet all fallen off.
anthony_doan 8y ago
A side note on country differences: A JPL intern from Spain basically told me that the day end when sunset in Spain, it's very easy there. In California sunset can be around 5 pm and that's too weird for her. From the a quick google look, it seems like Spain daylight start from 6am or 7am and end around 8 or 9 pm. It's super interesting.
- ema 8y ago
  Well Spain's time is a bit weird because they use CET which is most appropriate for like Sweden and the Czech Republic and the countries slightly east or west of them. Even France's use of CET is more about integration with their eastern neighbors than about having the sun the highest at 12 pm.
joeax 8y ago
Not only that, but the seasons have different meanings to different people depending on where in the USA you live. In my hot and desert climate spring means late February, but in Minnesota it could mean mid-May. When you see a season mentioned in American marketing it basically means they have no idea. If a company says "spring 2019" it could mean sometime in April, or on June 20, hours before the summer solstice.

edanm 8y ago

What a brilliant observation, I love finding things like that where you never really thought consciously about something. I'm similar to you, though I don't even have the excuse of living with different seasons - I just never really thought about it.

foobarbazetc 8y ago
As an also-Australian, my brain just doesn’t process seasons like Americans. If someone says “coming in the Spring” I literally have no idea when that is. The dates of seasons are meaningless.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  As a Polish person, my brain hates these too, even though we have proper seasons here. When I see "coming in the Spring", my mind is all "that's 20-ish of March, I think... or maybe April... no, December is definitely winter, so it must be March!". Seasons are dumb. I remember reading a rant on the Internet once that advocated that we should recognize two seasons - summer and winter. You could put the boundary at equinoxes, with summer encompassing both traditional summer and spring, and winter encompassing traditional autumn and winter. The definition would be simple: summer is when it's kind of warm most of the time, winter is when it's kind of cold most of the time. I remember this resonating with me much more than the traditional definition. Going back to temporal coordinates, the older I get the more confident I am in feeling that, for terrestrial use, anything that's not an ISO 8601 date is garbage and should not be used.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Izkata 8y ago
    > and winter encompassing traditional autumn and winter. The definition would be simple: summer is when it's kind of warm most of the time, winter is when it's kind of cold most of the time. At least in the part of the US I'm from, we only used "Fall" for "Autumn", because colloquially it was already defined as a simple and pretty tight (but often slightly different each year) period: When the leaves on trees have changed color, but not yet all fallen off.

anthony_doan 8y ago

A side note on country differences: A JPL intern from Spain basically told me that the day end when sunset in Spain, it's very easy there. In California sunset can be around 5 pm and that's too weird for her. From the a quick google look, it seems like Spain daylight start from 6am or 7am and end around 8 or 9 pm. It's super interesting.

ema 8y ago
Well Spain's time is a bit weird because they use CET which is most appropriate for like Sweden and the Czech Republic and the countries slightly east or west of them. Even France's use of CET is more about integration with their eastern neighbors than about having the sun the highest at 12 pm.

joeax 8y ago

Not only that, but the seasons have different meanings to different people depending on where in the USA you live. In my hot and desert climate spring means late February, but in Minnesota it could mean mid-May. When you see a season mentioned in American marketing it basically means they have no idea. If a company says "spring 2019" it could mean sometime in April, or on June 20, hours before the summer solstice.