Timeline for Is there a hemisphere-neutral way of specifying a season?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
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| Jun 17, 2020 at 9:43 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Apr 4, 2019 at 17:24 | comment | added | Kat | @CJDennis if you're using a season to describe a time period, the exact dates are probably not important (or you'd say the dates instead). If you say some object is as tall as a giraffe, most people will have a general idea of how tall it is. | |
| Apr 4, 2019 at 4:18 | comment | added | CJ Dennis | The Australian Government website you quote has defined its own term "the Northern Winter period from 28 October 2018 to 30 March 2019". Note that it's two days longer than five calendar months (possibly to account for only 28 days in February) and neither the start nor the end date exactly align with any recognised calendar-defined seasons. November is the last month of spring (northern autumn) and March is the first month of autumn (northern spring). The three months of summer (northern winter) are in between. | |
| Apr 4, 2019 at 3:53 | comment | added | Kevin | @CJDennis: "everyone should instantly know exactly how high that is to one decimal point in metres" - Oh, I don't think you've interacted with enough Americans. Most of us would have to convert it from feet, which would be inaccurate as we'd approximate 3 ft = 1 m (which is actually quite wrong). | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 23:31 | comment | added | CJ Dennis | Everyone who didn't totally sleep in school knows that giraffes are tall. If I say my house is as tall as a giraffe, everyone should instantly know exactly how high that is to one decimal point in metres. The OP wants a simple phrase that will be understood unambiguously, precisely, and instantly all around the world to mean both "summer" and "the months of June, July, and August". The best they could do is "In the months of June, July, and August (what I will call the northern summer)...". | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 23:23 | comment | added | CJ Dennis | It was not clear from the OP's question at the time of writing that it was not for a story but "a piece of technical writing that will be read globally". It still isn't clear, with only a tag suggesting the OP's intent. The OP should ideally incorporate the relevant information into their question. | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 16:28 | comment | added | Monty Harder | @user10915156 Those two definitions can be used to clarify "Northern meteorological summer" and "Northern astronomical summer" if that technical distinction is relevant. There is a third common use of the term "Summer" at least in UK parlance. It's the equivalent of "Daylight Saving Time" in North American terminology. For example, at this writing the UK is on "British Summer Time" despite it being spring by the other two definitions of seasons. | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 14:37 | comment | added | user37583 | @CJDennis This question does not pertain to a "story", it is about technical writing. | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 14:34 | comment | added | user37583 | @CJDennis Third, even if you think of summer as fixed by two dates, there are different definitions of summer. There is the meteorological summer (begin: June 1st in Europe), that is defined by plant growth and temperature changes; there is the astronomical summer (begin: June 21st in Europe) that is defined by the movement of the planets; maybe there are other scientific definitions of summer, and at least these two don't agree. | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 14:32 | comment | added | user37583 | @CJDennis I'm surprised. First, in the minds of the general populace, summer is not a fixed period between two dates, but rather that time of the year that is warm, as opposed to that time of year that is cold (winter). Summer in that sense starts on a different day each year and varies in length. Second, everyone who didn't totally sleep in school knows that summer in the northern hemisphere is when its winter in the southern hemisphere. Whether or not its actually hot and dry in, say, Chile, when its snowing in Japan, is irrelevant for a rough sense of when the seasons are elsewhere. | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 9:21 | comment | added | CJ Dennis | @Luris I know they're approximately opposite (the dates don't line up exactly) but it's not going to be a moment of instant recognition for an Australian. We'll be scratching our heads while we do the mental maths. And that head scratching could be detrimental to the story (i.e. not paying attention while we keep reading). | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 9:18 | comment | added | CJ Dennis | @gerrit Darwin has two seasons, wet and dry. It doesn't have summer or winter because it's in the tropics. So "summer in Darwin" doesn't make any sense. | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 8:27 | comment | added | gerrit | Would an Australian be confused to think of "northern summer" as summer in Darwin? | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 7:57 | comment | added | Luris | @CJDennis The hemispheres are opposite of each other on the "wheel of seasons". Late summer in Australia is late winter in Austria and so on. So if southern summer is December to February, northern summer is June to August. (Also, (at least) some countries define seasons from equinoxes to solstices rather than "when it's generally rather cold", making their northern summer from around June 21th to around September 21th.) | |
| Apr 3, 2019 at 2:10 | comment | added | CJ Dennis | This is good, but as someone who's lived in the southern hemisphere all my life, I don't instantly know when northern summer is. Summer is December to February and northern summer is... somewhere in the middle of the year. Or maybe the third quarter of the year because don't the northern seasons start on the 22nd instead of the 1st? Times are confusing! I'm confused! Northern summer is sometime between 15 May and 15 November. I think. Maybe. | |
| Apr 2, 2019 at 21:18 | history | edited | Laurel♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Apr 2, 2019 at 19:37 | comment | added | user37583 | @Iamsodarncool Glad I could be of help. | |
| Apr 2, 2019 at 19:27 | vote | accept | Jimmy | ||
| Apr 2, 2019 at 19:19 | history | answered | user37583 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |