学习英语的人一般都了解，秋季有autumn和fall两种说法，只是英国人一般把秋季叫作autumn，而美国人在指代秋季的时候常常会用另一个说法：fall。有些人以为autumn是传统说法，而fall是现代别称，其实fall的历史比autumn还要悠久。
September 23, 2023 marks the start of a new season—but what exactly you should call that season depends on where in the world you are and whom you ask. In Great Britain, the third season of the year usually has only one name: autumn. But if you hop across the Atlantic, you'll find that people use both fall and autumn interchangeably when referring to this time of year, making it the only season in the English language with two widely accepted names. So what is it about the season that makes it so special?
2023年9月23日标志着新季节的开始，但你应该怎么样称呼这个季节取决于你在世界上的什么地方与你问的是哪国人。在英国，一年的第三个季节一般都只有一个名字：autumn。但假如你横跨大西洋，你会发现大家交替用fall和autumn来指代秋季，于是秋季便成了英语中唯一一个拥有两个广为同意的名字的季节。那样是什么让这个季节这样特别呢?
According to Dictionary.com, fall isn't a modern nickname that followed the more traditional autumn. The two terms are actually first recorded within a few hundred years of each other.
依据词典网站Dictionary.com，fall并非秋季的传统说法autumn的现代别称。这两个说法最早的记录相距时间不到几百年。
Before either word emerged in the lexicon, the season between summer and winter was known as harvest, or hærfest in Old English. The word is of Germanic stock and meant "picking," "plucking," or "reaping," a nod to the act of gathering and preserving crops before winter.
在这两个词出现之前，夏季和冬季之间的这个季节在英语中被叫做harvest，古英语是hærfest。该词来自于日耳曼语，意思是“采摘”或“收割”，指的是在冬季之前采集和储藏粮食。
In the 1500s, English speakers began referring to the seasons separating the cold and warm months as either the fall of the leaf or spring of the leaf, or fall and spring for short. Both terms were simple and evocative, but for some reason, only spring had staying power in Britain. By the end of the 1600s, autumn, from the French word autompne and the Latin autumnus, had overtaken fall as the standard British term for the third season.
在16世纪，以英语为母语的人开始用树叶的落下或成长来指代寒热两季之间的几个月。两个词都是既简单又形象，但出于某种缘由，只有spring在英国流传了下来。到了17世纪末，来源于法语autompne和拉丁语autumnus的autumn取代fall成为指代第三个季节的规范英国用词。
Around the same time England adopted autumn, the first-ever British American colonists were voyaging to North America. With them they brought the words fall and autumn, and while the former fell out of fashion overseas, it solidified itself in the local vernacular by the time America won its independence. Today, using both words to describe the season before winter is still a uniquely American behavior.
大约在英格兰人使用autumn来指代秋季的同一时间，第一批去美国的英国殖民者开始漂洋过海到了北美。他们将fall和autumn带到了北美国内，尽管前者fall在大洋彼岸已经不再时尚，但它却在美国获得独立之前在当地方言中站稳了脚跟。现在，用两个词来指代冬季之前的这个季节仍然是美国独有些做法。
重点词语
emerged 出现，浮现，露出 ; 显现 ; 暴露 ; 显露 ; 被知道 ; 露头 ; 露出真相 ; emerge的过去分词和过去式
summer and winter 夏天和冬天 ; 寒暑 ; 冬凉夏暖 ; 冬暖夏凉
known as 被叫做 ; 以…而闻名 ; 被觉得是
plucking 摘 ; 拔 ; 弹，弹拨 ; 拔掉，退去 ; pluck的目前分词
reaping 收成 ; 收割 ; 获得 ; reap的目前分词
nod to 向…点头
preserving 保存 ; 保护 ; 保留 ; 维护 ; 保鲜 ; 保养 ; 贮存 ; 保持…的原状 ; 保留，保存 ; preserve的目前分词
英文来源：Mental Floss