Autumn is here

It's the beginning of October, and this means the beginning of the academic year for most of you. Classes are starting up in the academy and in companies, and everybody is making resolutions about their upcoming studies. What are yours?

I thought in honor of the recent equinox, we'd look at some autumn vocabulary. This is an edited version of the info from Dictionary.com.

Autumn or Fall is the third season, from the descending or autumnal equinox (literally 'equal night', occuring twice a year when the Sun crosses the equator and day and night are equal in length) to the winter solstice, approximately September 21 to December 21. The root of the word autumn is the Latin autumnus/auctumnus, and was first used by Chaucer c. 1374. The use of fall in North American English comes from the phrase fall of the leaf and it came into use by 1545 for this time of year when the leaves fall from the trees. The term autumn is still preferred in British English.

A common autumn phenomenon in the central, eastern, and northern United States and in Europe is Indian summer, a period of unseasonably warm and dry weather that sometimes occurs in October or November.

The names of the months September, October, November are rooted in Latin. September is from septem 'seventh month' of the early Roman calendar - now the ninth month in the Gregorian calendar. October (octo) is Latin for 'eighth month' (now tenth) and November (novem) is Latin for 'ninth month' (now eleventh in the Gregorian calendar). In Old English, September was called 'harvest month.'