To not understand why everyone is calling every school holiday "half term" all of a sudden?

[CollieFIower]

It's not "half term" now. Half term is literally halfway through a term - summer/Easter/Christmas holidays mark the end of a term.

One half term break is in October, between the summer and Christmas holidays.

One half term break is in February, halfway between the Christmas and Easter holidays.

One half term break is in late may, halfway between the Easter and summer holidays.

Then you have actual holidays that come at the end of a term, and a new term starts when school goes back afterwards.

It seems like over the last couple of years I'm seeing all holidays referred to as "half term" and I know it's hardly a big deal and yes I'm also worried about nuclear war and child poverty but it still annoys me a bit!

I don’t even have children and it still annoys me as even I know it’s the bloody “holidays” rather than half term!

I agree with you OP. Though technically there IS a holiday every half term, this one should be called the Easter holidays. My dd (year 13) referred to it as half term the other day and I corrected her; however she was obviously going to stick to calling it 'half term' which means every teen on social media is also doing so - the battle is lost!!

@CollieFIower

It's basically because huge numbers of people are either badly educated or completely thick (which would account for PP saying that people on Instagram do it, as they largely fit both categories).

@bitcharming

It's Whitsun, not Witson. Whitsuntide is the week following Whit Sunday, and includes Whit Monday (which a lot of people would call 'end of May bank holiday'). It's to do with Pentecost.

So many people on here calling others "thick" 🙄

My daughter almost lost out on child care for DGC … could I have them half term …. Yes … then only by chance did I twig that she didn’t mean may ! So now I repeat back requests with dates attached 🤣

First world problems

Yes you're right, MN is strictly only a forum for discussing life-or-death situations. Oh hang on...

And that's fine. I hope you manage to sort them out. Meanwhile, I'll carry on moaning about minor irritations whilst simultaneously having some fairly big problems of my own that I don't post about on MN and worrying quite a lot about impending global catastrophe that I feel powerless to prevent if that's ok with you?

I’m a teacher and will often say half term because it is literally half of the term and the topics I teach are half termly.

Yes, half a term is a half-term. And the holiday halfway through a term is a half-term holiday, which is abbreviated to 'half term. Admittedly that could potentially occasionallycause confusion. But that confusion isn't going to be solved by calling all the holidays half-term as well! Christmas, Easter and Summer holidays are at the end of a (traditional) term. The half-term holidays are half-way through a term - hence the name.

Truly couldn’t care less if someone said it’s half term to be honest. Got bigger problems going on.

Sorry to hear that. Maybe ignore the trivial threads that don't interest you then? People are allowed to discuss and be mildly annoyed about trivial things. In fact most people are from time to time, I should think.

I have also had a rant about this OP, I keep seeing Easter holidays referred to as 'half term' and it annoys me a lot.

It annoys me too. I can cope with the teenager saying mid term for half term but I can't cope with people calling Easter and Christmas half term.

It does seem the Easter break is the one targeted with this - Christmas and Summer seem to avoid it much more.

Perhaps Easter is getting lost in the modern world - saw an Easter wreath on a door and DH says he's seen Easter trees - bunnies giving out chocolate eggs isn't enough any more.

A lot of people don't understand the Whitsun break term anymore- half term between Easter and summer holidays

Because I simply don’t care. I don’t have kids so really have no idea which term, half term, end of term, school holiday it is. And if I’m mentioning it in a conversation I’m not going to whip out a calendar and check.
So for simplicity I just say half term for any school breaks

Crack on with yourself then.

How can hearing a phrase and thinking how annoying that s not the right term equate to too much time on your hands?

You might be doing thinking wrongly if you find it a task that can't be done with anything else

Yanbu. Really annoys me too!

So irritating! School does it too!

Yes, it annoys me too along with “I have an 18 month year old” and “full fat Coke.”

YANBU. I thought it was just me who had noticed this and was annoyed by it, but clearly not!

This has irritated the hell out of me for the past few years. Glad I’m not alone!

I'm a teacher and we work on half terms for planning etc so it has morphed into being called a half term break as we are permanently on countdown

When I first started it was the end of term we looked forward to, now it's definitely the half term

Blimey what a thing to get irate about.

Some people can’t have a discussion without resorting to name calling unfortunately.

These are the same people who get so triggered over someone saying half term instead of Easter, so I guess they just have major issues.

But how do you feel about 3am in the morning