学英语的人一般都知道，秋天有Autumn和fall两种说法，只不过英国人一般把秋天叫作autumn，而美国人在指代秋天的时候常常会用另一个说法：fall（落下）。有的人以为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, 2019, 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.
2019年9月23日（秋分）标志着新季节的开始，但是你应该如何称呼这个季节取决于你在世界上的哪个地方以及你问的是哪国人。
In Great Britain, the third season of the year usually has only one name: autumn.
在英国，一年的第三个季节通常都只有一个名字：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.
但如果你横跨大西洋，你会发现人们交替使用fall和autumn来指代秋天，于是秋天便成了英语中唯一一个拥有两个广为接受的名字的季节。
那么是什么让这个季节如此特别呢？
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.
根据词典网站Dictionary.com，fall并不是秋天的传统说法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.
在这两个词出现之前，夏天和冬天之间的这个季节在英语中被称为harvest，古英语是hærfest。
The word is of Germanic stock and meant "picking," "plucking," or "reaping," a nod to the act of gathering and preserving crops before winter.
该词源于日耳曼语，意思是“采摘”或“收割”，指的是在冬天之前收集和储藏粮食。
