What’s your favorite month? We ask the students in Class Two. 【小题1】 Alan likes December best. Because his and his mother’s birthdays are in December and he thinks it is a happy thing. 【小题2】 Mary’s favorite months are July and August, because she likes summer and she doesn’t go to school. She thinks it’s relaxing. She also (也) likes September. 【小题3】 She can meet different teachers, too. She thinks it’s an interesting thing. Tom likes November and his favorite sport is ping-pong. In November, there is a ping-pong game in his school.

An interesting thing is that many girls love December and January. 【小题4】 Many boys don’t like June. 【小题5】 Bu t summer vacation comes after them. What about you? What’s your favorite month?

What season is it in October? If you ask people from the UK, they will tell you it’s “autumn”. But if you go to the US, you will find that people use both “autumn” and “fall”. Why does this season have two names in English?

According to a Dictionary.com, both words have been around for a long time, but neither of them was the first to describe this season. During this season, crops(庄稼) would become ripe and farmers would have a big harvest(丰收). So in old English, this season was simple called “harvest”.

Then, in the 1600s, more people left their farms and moved to cities. Wish fewer people farming, the word “harvest” become less useful English speakers needed a different name for the season. They knew leaves fell from trees during the season, so people started calling it “the fall of the leaf” or “fall” for short.

But at the end of the 1600s, autumn from the French word “autompne” and the Latin “autumns”, came to England. It gradually replaced(替代) “fall” as the word for this season.

At the same time, British people were making their first trips to North America. They brought both the words “fall” and “autumn” with them. That’s why today’s Americans have two names for one season.