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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

We call them all "half term" here..

501 replies

Acc0untant · 15/04/2025 10:27

And apparently I'm unreasonable. I see comment after comment about "it's not half term, that happens half way through each term" but ever since I was a child I, and everyone I know, calls each holiday a half term other than summer and Christmas. My parents and the parents of my friends (bearing in mind I'm in my 30s) have always done this.

Is it regional? I'm in the midlands. It's not just students/parents here, teachers use it this way, our school communications. Not even just my experience with one school, it was the same at my secondary school, my daughter's primary and secondary, my other child's nursery etc.

For us this is because we have a holiday after every half of a term, not that the holiday is half way within the term.

I appreciate that this wasn't the original intention of the phrase but at what point do we accept it's fine to use? Same as staycation originally meaning to do day trips from home rather than a UK holiday, it's now been used for both for so long that it's colloquially acceptable for both meanings.

Please no bun fights, I can't be bothered. I appreciate the pedantry with things such as this (and I can be that way with other stuff) but I'd really just like a nice, chilled conversation about it.

Do you say half term for almost all holidays? What region are you from? Would enjoy seeing if there's a correlation.

OP posts:
AutiAngst · 30/04/2025 21:06

Everydayimhuffling · 15/04/2025 10:29

It's regional. I moved to the midlands from elsewhere in the UK and was surprised by it at first. I don't know why people get such a bee in their bonnet about it though! It doesn't stop you understanding what people mean.

I was born and bred in the Midlands, almost 7 decades. Listening to my kids, my grandkids, friend's kids, friend's grandkids, even their greatgrand kids etc and I've never heard the phrase "half term" used to describe anything other than the actual half term break. It's half term break, end of term break, or the "name of the holiday" break.

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