What's wrong with the name "Autumn"???

Over the past few weeks I've heard this season referred to as fall probable several hundred times. I've heard the word Autumn twice & that was in the name of a soup at a ritzy restaurant. WHY do people not like the word Autumn???

Can you say Autumn?

 

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Well yes, but then I'm English. "Fall" is an American usage, isn't it? I don't know the origin of the term, but always assumed to was to do with leaves falling, which I understand can be rather more dramatic in N America than here because of the continental climate. Is that right ? And do Americans also use the term Autumn?

 

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Yes we use the word Autumn.

 

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In Canada and USA "fall" is more likely to be used in everyday conversation and autumn more frequently used in formal contexts. Since there may be no means to ask for immediate clarification with the latter (as if somebody reading in a magazine or hearing in a lecturer's audience that "The tragic incident occurred last fall" could be dense enough to take that as referring to the most recent severe drop in market conditions, etc, instead of the season!).

 

I use the two interchangeably. Remembering, of course, that we just had the autumnal equinox.

 

Do you call the spring "Vern"?

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I thought about that during lunch...

Not to mention that the southern hemisphere just had their vernal equinox. Maybe we should drop the terms vernal and autumnal, and just refer to them as the March and September equinox.

 

Well then you'd have to call the fall "Autu" and that would be confusing. (Or you could call them "vernal" and "autumnal" which might get people thinking you're smart!)

 

Autumn sounds more french or even german and also fall is so much easier to say and quicker, so people in US just say fall instead.

 

"Fall" is also a more richly connected word - the fall of the year corresponding to the fall of night, the fall of the leaves, the sense of "fail", and so forth. One seems to fall into cold and dark, rather than rise into light and warmth. " Autumn" is by comparison isolated and disconnected, specific and sparse, almost a technical term.

 

"Liking" a word is completely up to person speaking - that's the beauty of language. The majority of the [American] population probably find it easier to say "fall" because the MN sound in "autumn" isn't utilized in speech very often, I can only think of a handful of times when it is actually used.
(I.E. Autumn, Damn, Column, Condemn, Hymn, solemn)

 

Fall is easier to pronounce to most native English speakers, and it makes much more sense to describe the season (as others have noted)

 

Americans probably can't pronounce the word "autumn".
They can't even pronounce "America".

 

How odd.
Being literal is almost exclusively the province of the English, amongst English speakers, yet the attitude is entirely American.
My surname, by way of example, demonstrates quite clearly I am descended from peasants. So very English.

Personally, I ran across a client with the surname "Aegisdottir", several months ago. To clarify, this is not a first-generation family name.
I'm still trying to figure out just how that came about.

It has nothing to do with English, of course. Just a curiosity.

 

Nevermind, just another limey flapping his gums. They still think English belongs to them.

 

Sorry, I should have said "some Americans"
Maybe it's not widespread, but
I have heard it pronounced it as "A Meerka."
Like Meerkat without the final T.
It is said in sentences like
"Ameerkans should impeach Obamma".

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We're Amerikats.

 

A Meerkat Gothic