James Baquet

    Becky is chatting with her classmate Lily in the common room of their dorm.

    Lily: Becky, can you help me out?

    Becky: Sure! What’s the problem?

    Lily: No problem, really. But here we are in late October, and I never really hear people speaking about “autumn.”

    Becky: Really? I hear about fall all the time.

    Lily: Fall? What’s that?

    Becky: Oh! That’s another word for autumn.

    Lily: Why do they call it that?

    Becky: Well, in some places — like the northeastern United States — the trees are deciduous and —

    Lily: They’re what?!

    Becky: “Deciduous.” It means their leaves fall in the autumn.

    Lily: Unlike pine trees, which are called...

    Becky: “Evergreen.”

    Lily: Oh, yeah. So the falling leaves give the name to the season “fall?”

    Becky: That’s right. But it’s mainly used only in North America.

    Lily: There are some holidays in autumn — sorry, fall — aren’t there?

    Becky: Sure! One of them is coming up soon — Halloween.

    Lily: Oh, yeah, the scary holiday.

    Becky: That’s how most of us think of it. In some traditions, Nov. 1 is the first day of winter. And since that’s the season of the dead, it was a time to commemorate the ancestors.

    Lily: I see.

    Becky: Later, the church made it a time to remember the Christians who had died, called “saints” or hallows,” so the evening before came to be called Halloween.

    Lily: Cool! And Thanksgiving is also in fall, right?

    Becky: Right. It’s a time to give thanks for all the food grown through the summer. Do you know what a “cornucopia” is?

    Lily: No...

    Becky: It’s also called a “horn of plenty.” It’s a kind of horn-shaped basket with vegetables coming out of it —

    Lily: Oh, I’ve seen that!

    Becky: It symbolizes all the good things that come from the earth.

    Lily: Got it.

    Becky: There are some other interesting phenomena in autumn. Not holidays, really, but events.

    Lily: Like what?

    Becky: Well, in the northeast, it sometimes gets warm in late October or early November, after it had already turned cold. This is called “Indian summer.”

    Lily: Why?

    Becky: No one’s sure. It may be because Native Americans took advantage of the warmer weather to gather up their final food before winter set in for good.

    Lily: That makes sense.

    Becky: Another event is called the “Harvest Moon.” It’s the full moon nearest the Autumn Equinox —

    Lily: Around Sept. 20 —

    Becky: Right. The moon comes up as the sun sets, so farmers could keep gathering food, or “harvesting,” a little longer.