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Assume v. Presume

They just wanted to make absolutely certain that you didn't confuse it for 19:36 pm o'clock in the evening.
 
This is not the first day of Summer, meteorologically or otherwise. Just because some organisation decides to rationalise their interpretation of what calendar period constitutes each season (for their own convenience, really), that does not mean Summer begins on 1st June for everyone else, and the TV weather presenters should not be presenting it as such!
 
By tradition and convention (not my opinion) 21st June (the solstice) is regarded as the first day of Summer. 24th June is "Midsummer's Day" (which is, of course, not half way through the Sunmer season!).

The complaint is because, for the last several years, the TV weather presenters have been (or appear to be) trying to get the public to accept their own internal convention - which should remain internal, much like "RMA" should have remained an internal but has escaped into the wild.
 
Black Hole said:
By tradition and convention (not my opinion) 21st June (the solstice) is regarded as the first day of Summer.
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Is 21st Dec. the first day of winter then? Clearly not and it's all stupid. By mathematical symmetry, the solstices should be the middle of winter and summer, not the start. There is always a lag in these things in the physical world though, so 1st Dec./Mar./June/Sep. seems eminently sensible to me.
24th June is "Midsummer's Day" (which is, of course, not half way through the Sunmer season!).
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I found this very confusing as a kid. I'm not sure I really understand it now (and I haven't <search engine>d it to check what it's all about).
The complaint is because, for the last several years, the TV weather presenters have been (or appear to be) trying to get the public to accept their own internal convention
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They always say "meteorological summer". I don't see why they shouldn't express what works for them as meteorologists.
 
'Cos there's no need. They are there to tell us what we need to know, not the nuts and bolts that goes on behind the scenes. That's the point of having weather presenters - to filter out the technicalities.

Yes, 21st December is, by convention, the first day of the Winter season. We are all well aware that the weather/temperature lags the incidence of solar radiation, and January and February are when we expect the weather to be bad - likewise July and August are the hottest months. The tradition/convention of Summer being 21st June to 21st September and Winter as 21st December to 21st March (marked by specific measurable points in Earth's orbit instead of arbitrary calendar dates) works fine.

The 24th June thing as Midsummer's Day is just a pagan festival that happens to be called "Midsummer's Day" - call it something else and it wouldn't be confusing. Setting up 1st June as the first day of Summer, even if prefixed by "meteorological", will create a shift in public perception (who will ignore the prefix).
 
The months and dates we use to chronical the year are artificial constructs anyway. What is more important is the passage of the traditional seasons in the enviroment for signifying the sowing, growing and harvesting of food crops.
 
Without going off and checking definitions my own use of those would generally be:
Expect = something that I believe will happen.
Anticipate = something I will be prepared for, but I believe might or might not happen.
So I'd generally anticipate the expected, but might also anticipate something I don't expect to happen (which is not the same as the unexpected).

I expect I'm wrong and anticipate being told off :eek:
 
Don't you think expect implies a degree of compulsion, whereas anticipate does not? The reason I raised this (and deliberately left it hanging to see what reaction it got), is that I heard expect used in a sentence where anticipate would have been (in my opinion) more appropriate - there was an anticipation, not an expectation.

The distinction is clouded by further grammatical construction:

Expect something to be done (expectation)

Expect something will happen (anticipation)

The latter problem can be avoided by never using expect to mean anticipate.

I can't imagine looking up definitions will help; as we are well aware, dictionaries record how words are used - regardless of whether those usages make logical sense or are optimal.
 
Black Hole said:
Yes, 21st December is, by convention, the first day of the Winter season. We are all well aware that the weather/temperature lags the incidence of solar radiation, and January and February are when we expect the weather to be bad - likewise July and August are the hottest months. The tradition/convention of Summer being 21st June to 21st September and Winter as 21st December to 21st March (marked by specific measurable points in Earth's orbit instead of arbitrary calendar dates) works fine.
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Revisiting this, I should just clarify that it is not the dates themselves that are important, but the dates on which the solstices and equinoxes occur. As it happens, the Summer solstice next year will be on 20th June, so that will be two years in a row that the longest day occurs on a Sunday (a very infrequent occurrence, I should think).

gomezz said:
The months and dates we use to chronical the year are artificial constructs anyway.
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Which is my point. But shirley you mean "chronicle".
 
"the programme shall commence (with) Beethoven's 5th..." doesn't seem to work without the "with", so what's your point? The issue with "mitigate against" is that the "against" (ought to) reverse the effect of the mitigation.

Maybe commence should be reserved for specifying a time and not used to identify the first item in a sequence. Use begin (with) instead.
 
Obviously wrong in that instance, but "commence with" isn't universally inappropriate, whereas "mitigate against" always is. Your example is what I describe as overly grandiose - "begin" would have been sufficient, but people like to sound important by using more syllables than is necessary.
 
BH said:
Your example is what I describe as overly grandiose
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Just like people who use the word 'myself' in place of the much shorter 'me' or 'I'. And then 'I, myself '. Argh.
 
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