Everybody who cares already knows (or can guess correctly) what vernal and autumnal mean. In any case this, this long-established usage will not be changed even if there were a unanimous on this list to invent something different.
Jack Aubert
At 11:56 AM 11/27/2002 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In einer eMail vom 11/27/2002 3:28:19 PM Westeuropäische Normalzeit schreibt [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
BUT... is anything unbiased??? I think that the calendar months are season
neutral? They don't seem to have the right ring though, in English anyway.
Whatever you settle on, make it something I am able to remember, or figure out when I hear it. I am just able to remember that "vernal" has something to do with spring, so that must mean the equinox in March. (Actually, I know less than this, namely, that the other one is called "autumnal", which means fall, so this one must be spring.) To get around the chauvinism (All this standing on my head to understand our friends from down under confuses me, too.), why not short circuit my thought processes and call them the "March equinox" and the "September equinox" from the beginning. It's not as elitist as some Latin or Babylonian name, but, hey, I'm American!
--Art Carlson
