Talk:spring

I moved this from the main page as it seems more appropriate here:

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RedRoseWay (talk) 18:49, 12 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

I wanted to offer an example for this entry under Noun: (countable, slang) An erection of the penis. (Can we add an example for this sense?) Most commonly this is used in the past tense form sprung "He was clearly endowed, it was easy to see him sprung." "Jim was aroused, you could see his spring bulge." Not sure if this was intentionally left out in the wind but hoping we can get an example added. --ThisIsCody (talk) 23:07, 14 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

@ThisIsCody: You seem mixed up about noun versus verb. Equinox ◑ 23:09, 14 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

This sense of "spring" has been in Wiktionary for years, but I have never seen it in any other source. Somebody slipped it in as a joke, back in the day, and it has become "fact" on the authority of ... having been in Wiktionary for a long time. Specifically

Revision as of 20:00, 6 February 2006 (edit) (undo)

216.114.70.194 (talk)

https://en.wiktionary.orghttps://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=spring&diff=801127&oldid=800497

I came across this spam entry years ago. I've never tried to delete it, because I wanted to see what happens to bad information in Wiktionary over time - is it truly self correcting? It looks like the answer is no, but it is probably time to end the experiment. Malangali (talk) 11:45, 15 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

Further, you can see that the anonymous user's contributions were all concerned with getting sexy tidbits into Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.orghttps://dictious.com/en/Special:Contributions/216.114.70.194 Malangali (talk) 11:51, 15 May 2023 (UTC)Reply

I accept that some sources and cultures regard March 21st as the "First Day of Spring", but this date is not even the vernal equinox in current years, and from an astronomical viewpoint (without the temperature lag), the equinox should be the middle of spring. Does anyone know where the misconception of the equinox being the start of spring arose? It has long standing - does it date back to the old Julian calendar when the seasons were shifted? Dbfirs 12:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

It may seem superficially logical that the equinox and solstice should mark the center point of the temperature curve, but that is not what happens. The first three weeks of September in the U.S. are a very warm period (in southern states, very hot), and the season changes noticeably cooler within just a few days of Sept. 21. The first three weeks are summer weather, the last week is fall weather. Air conditioning bills in southern zones are very high for September, but almost stop in October. In any case, in the U.S., the seasons are as fixed as the days of the week and the national holidays. In the winter, freezing weather runs right up to the equinox in most areas. The equinoxes are close to the beginning of sharp temperature curves, not in the middle of the curves. —Stephen 13:08, 13 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I was surprised to find (after I'd made the edits), that these dates seem to have some sort of official status. In my part of the world, where a hard frost on September 1st turned all my hydrangea leaves and flowers a surreal black, the date seems ridiculous. Perhaps it would be wiser to avoid committing the Wikipedia entry to fixed dates. The temperature lag might be more than seven weeks in parts of the USA, but it is definitely shorter in other parts of the world, especially oceanic Europe and the southern hemisphere. Do Americans really regard summer as beginning on June 21st? In recent years, that has been near to the end of the sunny weather here! Dbfirs 19:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

I think it would be a better idea to mark the definition as U.S. and add a new definition for UK. Obviously Australian and NZ will be different again, and since Canada is so far north, it might not be the same as the U.S. I always thought the U.S. dates appied to the entire free world north of the equator. Yes, in the U.S. summer invariably begins at the moment of the summer solstice, winter at the winter solstice, and spring and fall at the equinoxes. The U.S. can be divided into eleven temperature zones...in most of the zones in the east, south and west, trees begin to put out new buds very close to the vernal equinox. Statistically speaking, the coldest part of winter is the first week of February. If the equinox were in the center, spring would begin in the dead of winter. As it happens, the beginning of February is midway through our winter season. Here in zone 7, temperatures begin to hit 100°F soon after June 21st, and they continue to be that high until almost exactly Sept. 21. —Stephen 07:43, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

It's not exclusive to the US. The date of March 21st (not the current equinox) seems to be fixed in more cultures than I had realised. I must have some Celtic blood in my veins because I've always thought of the equinox as mid-season, with the temperature lag being an anomaly. What do you make of the American meteorologists' saying that spring starts in the Everglades in early February and moves north at around twenty miles per day? Dbfirs 08:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

By that they just mean springlike temperatures. The season itself officially begins at the same moment everywhere in the country, from Florida to Alaska. The same statement holds true in the fall when speaking of the color-change in the tree leaves from green to bright reds and yellows. The color change moves from north to south at the rate of about 20 miles a day. —Stephen 10:17, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Who decrees the start date of this "official spring"? Dbfirs 16:54, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

Could be it’s the same authority as the one who decided a week has seven days. But if it wasn’t King George, then I suppose it was the founding fathers. I had thought the answer might be found on Wikipedia, but the definitions there have been rewritten for Great Britain and no longer pertain to the situation in America. As far as I know, our dates were established in the 16th century, or may have been brought over from the Old World along with the English language. —Stephen 17:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

You may well be right about the dates being brought over by the founding fathers, that is why I thought they might relate to the old Julian calendar when the seasons were shifted. I tried to adjust the Wikipedia articles from a global viewpoint because articles in English are read worldwide. They were previously very much a United States view. What I am trying to find out is the question of who decided that the equinox & solstice dates should be the start of the seasons. Was it a misunderstanding of the astronomical position because of an approximate coincidence of temperature lag with these dates? I thought that meteorologists world-wide (even in the USA) usually reject the idea of a fixed date for seasons, but I'll do a bit more research when I have time. Dbfirs 07:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)Reply

The translation of Spring (season) in Basque is Udaberri, not Udaherri...Somebody could change it? I can't!

You did. Well done! Anyone can edit, and constructive edits are always appreciated. Thank you. Dbfirs 18:05, 2 July 2009 (UTC)Reply

As is rather common, what Mr. Harper gets right at the Online Etym Dictionary comes from the actual OED and he muffs quite a bit. It's not actually a reliable source: it's basically just a self-published blog and should be treated as such. — LlywelynII 09:44, 9 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

See springing, noun (derived from Chambers 1908). Equinox ◑ 19:22, 23 April 2019 (UTC)Reply