為什么秋天有兩個(gè)名字?

為什么秋天有兩個(gè)名字?

As the seasons change, the days grow shorter, the leaves change colors and the collection of flavors called pumpkin spice is added to practically everything.

隨著季節(jié)的變化，白天變得越來(lái)越短，葉子也會(huì)改變顏色，幾乎所有的東西都添加了一種叫做南瓜香料的味道。

These are just a few signs that autumn has arrived. Or is it fall? The indecision about which name to use only seems fitting when applied to a season that is itself a shift from one clearly defined season, summer, to another equally well-defined season, winter.

這些只是autumn到來(lái)的幾個(gè)跡象，或者說(shuō)是fall?當(dāng)這個(gè)季節(jié)本身就是一個(gè)從一個(gè)明確定義的季節(jié)——夏季到另一個(gè)同樣明確定義的季節(jié)——冬季的轉(zhuǎn)變時(shí)，用哪個(gè)名字來(lái)命名似乎很合適。

rusm / Getty Images

With two names naturally comes the question of why — one name is good enough for all the other seasons, after all — and which one should be used. Maybe fall is only for certain times of the season, and autumn for the other, like the difference between dinner and supper. Or perhaps autumn is only used by pretentious folks who like to sound fancy when fall is perfectly acceptable.

既然有兩個(gè)名字，自然就會(huì)有一個(gè)問(wèn)題——畢竟，一個(gè)名字對(duì)于其他季節(jié)來(lái)說(shuō)已經(jīng)足夠好了——應(yīng)該用哪個(gè)名字。也許fall只是一個(gè)季節(jié)的特定時(shí)間，而autumn則是一個(gè)季節(jié)，就像正餐和晚餐的區(qū)別。又或者，只有當(dāng)fall完全可以接受的時(shí)候，自命不凡的人才會(huì)用autumn這個(gè)詞，因?yàn)樗麄兿矚g聽(tīng)起來(lái)很花哨。

The Fall of Autumn

秋天

Autumn was originally called harvest, a potentially confusing name. George Cole [public domain]/Wikimedia Commons

Unlike summer and winter — words derived from Proto-Indo-European terms meaning "half" and "wet," respectively, and, as such, have been around for well over 1,000 years — the first word for the season between them is considerably younger.

不像夏季和冬季，它們的第一個(gè)詞出現(xiàn)的時(shí)間要短得多——前者來(lái)自原始印歐語(yǔ)系，分別表示“一半”和“濕”，因此已經(jīng)存在了1000多年。

According to Merriam-Webster, autumn first appeared in English in the 1300s, derived from the Latin word autumnus. Autumn caught on quickly, likely in no small part because it replaced the original name for the season, which was simply harvest. As you might imagine, calling the season in which crops were collected from the fields harvest might've been confusing given that harvest is also the name for the act itself.

根據(jù)韋氏詞典，autumn最早出現(xiàn)在14世紀(jì)的英語(yǔ)中，源于拉丁單詞autumn nus。它很快就流行起來(lái)了，很大程度上可能是因?yàn)樗〈诉@個(gè)季節(jié)最初的名字“收獲”。你們可以想象，把從田里收集作物的季節(jié)稱為harvest可能會(huì)讓人感到困惑因?yàn)閔arvest也是行為動(dòng)作本身的名稱。

So autumn was the go-to term for this time between summer and winter for a couple of centuries. Fall as a name for the season came about sometime in the 1500s, a shortened version of the very poetic phrase for fall, "the fall of leaves." The English phrase captured the essence of the season without leading to confusion, like harvest potentially did. Not even a century later, the phrase has become a simple word: fall.

因此，幾個(gè)世紀(jì)以來(lái)，autumn一直是夏天和冬天之間的季節(jié)。Fall這個(gè)名字出現(xiàn)在16世紀(jì)的某個(gè)時(shí)候，是一個(gè)非常詩(shī)意的短語(yǔ)“落葉的秋天”的縮寫(xiě)。這個(gè)英語(yǔ)短語(yǔ)抓住了這個(gè)季節(jié)的精髓，卻沒(méi)有導(dǎo)致混亂，就像harvest可能造成的那樣。不到一個(gè)世紀(jì)后，這個(gè)短語(yǔ)就變成了一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的詞:fall。

Either Or

二選一

'Fall' does capture the reason for the season much better than 'autumn' does. Kenny Louie [CC BY 2.0]/Wikimedia Commons

As for which term for the season you should use, the long and the short of it is that using either fall or autumn is acceptable. Even journalistic style guides agree. Look up "autumn" in the Associate Press (AP) style guide and you get referred to their entry on seasons. It, oddly, doesn't mention autumn, however, only fall. This led one writer to inquire if fall is therefore the preferred name for the season in AP style. "No preference intended," the AP editors wrote back. "The terms are used interchangeably."

至于你應(yīng)該用哪個(gè)詞來(lái)表示這個(gè)季節(jié)，它的長(zhǎng)和短的意思是，使用fall或autumn都是可以接受的。甚至連新聞風(fēng)格指南也同意這種說(shuō)法。在美聯(lián)社風(fēng)格指南中查閱“autumn”一詞，你會(huì)看到它們對(duì)應(yīng)季節(jié)的詞條。奇怪的是，它沒(méi)有提到autumn，只有fall。這讓一位作家不禁要問(wèn)，“fall”是不是美聯(lián)社喜歡用的這個(gè)季節(jié)的名字。美聯(lián)社的編輯回復(fù)說(shuō):“我并沒(méi)有刻意的偏好。”這兩個(gè)術(shù)語(yǔ)可以互換使用。

Henry and George Fowler's "The King's English," a smash hit of a book when it was published in 1906 and published again in 1908 concerned itself with proper usage of the English language, specifically British English. The book contains a whole chapter about the insidious nature of Americanisms and how they were ruining Kipling. However, the brothers did agree that the Americans got one thing right, and it's the use of the word fall instead of autumn.

亨利和喬治·福勒合著的《國(guó)王的英語(yǔ)》在1906年出版、1908年再版時(shí)大獲成功，該書(shū)關(guān)注的是英語(yǔ)語(yǔ)言的恰當(dāng)用法，尤其是英式英語(yǔ)。書(shū)中有整整一章都在講述美式英語(yǔ)的陰險(xiǎn)本質(zhì)，以及它們是如何毀掉吉卜林的。不過(guò)，兄弟倆一致認(rèn)為，美國(guó)人在一件事上做對(duì)了，那就是他們使用了fall這個(gè)詞而不是autumn。

"In the details of divergence, [the Americans] have sometimes had the better of [the English]," they write. "Fall is better on the merits than autumn, in every way: it is short, picturesque; it reveals its derivation to every one who uses it, not to the scholar only, like autumn; and we once had as good a right to it as the Americans; but we have chosen to let the right lapse, and to use the word now is no better than larceny."

他們寫(xiě)道:“在分歧的細(xì)節(jié)上，(美國(guó)人)有時(shí)勝過(guò)(英國(guó)人)。從各方面來(lái)說(shuō)，fall都比autumn好:它很短，風(fēng)景如畫(huà);它像autumn一樣，向每一個(gè)使用它的人揭示它的來(lái)源，而不只是向?qū)W者揭示;我們?cè)?jīng)和美國(guó)人一樣有權(quán)享有這種權(quán)利;但我們選擇了放任自流，用‘現(xiàn)在’這個(gè)詞無(wú)異于盜竊。”

And there's no worse crime than word larceny.

沒(méi)有比偷竊文字更糟糕的犯罪了。

While location will likely play a part in where you hear fall or autumn, it's ultimately up to you to decide which one best captures the spirit of this particular season. Please, though, whatever you do, just don't start calling it pumpkin spice season.

在你聽(tīng)到這兩個(gè)詞的時(shí)候，地點(diǎn)可能會(huì)起一定的作用，但最終要由你來(lái)決定哪一個(gè)能最好地捕捉這個(gè)特定季節(jié)的精神。但是，無(wú)論你做什么，請(qǐng)不要開(kāi)始稱它為南瓜香料季節(jié)。