We call them all "half term" here..

[Acc0untant]

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.

I’m in Merseyside and always say half term no matter what the season is. Drives me insane when people correct others about it.

You are right most of my time at school it was September weekend/Feb weekend but it started changing to half term as I was leaving in late 90s

The random long weekend at end of May/beginning of June was always half term to us

My sister is a teacher in Glasgow now and she always uses the term half term for the long weekends

Lived in various regions of the UK but originally from the Midlands. It's only in recent years that everyone has started calling all the breaks half-term which really really irritates me. I've even heard the summer holidays be called 'summer half term'. It seems to be nothing to do with regions, possibly more to do with social media and a shifting approach to language. I also wonder if the school terms being linked to religious and farming traditions, mean that people no longer understand, or see the importance of, why we have breaks at these times.

This is a whole other headache in my house. If I hear breadcake one more time 😂

I grew up in Scotland and we didn’t get half term. At least not in the schools I went to. Not sure if they do now?.

We had what we called in the October week which was effectively half term during the first term, but in February and May we just had a long weekend with the Monday off. Not a full week off like they do in England for their February and May half-terms.

To be clear we did get Christmas, Easter and summer holidays but the “half term” break you get in the middle of the term wasn’t really a thing…I think?

Never heard this! Half Term is only Oct, Feb and May half term holidays, half way through the term.

East Anglia way and same as you! Its always "Kids are off on half term!"

Grew up in NE and now live near London and never heard it.

Seamus Heaney definitely calls it this in the title of his poem.

We don't say half term at all in Scotland. We have Easter holidays, Summer holidays, tattie holidays (October). Then there's a few bank holiday weekends, and in services.

I hadn’t heard of the term ‘half term’ until I moved to England from Scotland and then I was confused because how can it be half term for every holiday? It was just school holidays in Scotland for me

I have only ever seen this on MN and not heard it in real life, which makes me think it is generational, because I don't have children in the UK school system, my only experience of it is my own school days.

When I was at school, we had Christmas holidays, Easter holidays and Summer holidays. Sometimes shortened to "Christmas" "Easter" or "the holidays" (for any of them).

Then the week's break halfway through each term was called the half-term holidays, but usually shortened to "half term" or (again) "the holidays"

It was clear to me that it was a holiday halfway through the term, but my assumption (which could be wrong) is that some people, especially school aged children, might not be aware of the word "term" meaning a section of the academic year. I remember it mostly from reading - the Worst Witch books and a lot of the Enid Blyton boarding school type books talked about terms, more than I encountered it in communication from our actual school. Though thinking about it, I can remember teachers saying things like "We will cover that next half-term" (meaning, in the next half of the current term, or the first half of the next full term)

If you were a child, and didn't know the word "term" but had learnt that the words "half term" put together mean a holiday from school, then you might incorrectly generalise to understand "half term" as a school holiday, rather than recognising it as meaning "half of a term". And if you grew up and never really questioned it, or saw it as an archaic thing (like holiday comes from "holy day" but I don't particularly think of holidays as being religious,) then it can fall into general use like that, especially when there's enough overlap (everyone using the name "half term" for 50% of the school holidays) to avoid misunderstandings most of the time, you might not realise for a long time that other people use it in a different way.

That's why my assumption is that it's generational. I could be wrong, though. Maybe it is regional as others have said.

I remember some adults referring to the May/June half term as Whitsun but nobody my age did.

I only call it half term when its the half term, otherwise it’s Easter, Summer or Christmas holidays

I'm in the midlands and everyone says Christmas, Easter and summer.

So the year starts in September.
We have October half term, Christmas, February half term, Easter, May half term, summer.
OP it's bizarre that you name the Christmas and summer holidays, but call the Easter holiday "half term".

This isn't about me though, I'm just one person so of course if it was solely me it won't change accepted usage but as this thread has shown there are lots of people over many regions who also do it. And some who seem to say half term for Christmas and summer too.

I'm not arguing right from wrong, as my staycation example showed I'm just wondering at what point does something change to be being accepted.

There are millions south of the M25 who would argue saying haitch rather than aitch for the letter H is incorrect. And yes it probably is if we look at the origins of the letter but there are also millions in the midlands and the north (unsure of Scottish pronunciation) who have said haitch for generations to the point that all of us up here don't consider it incorrect anymore. It's easy to call a few people incorrect, but when something is acceptable to such a vast proportion of the population is that when we concede something can be used in a different way?

Honestly who cares, some of you are mental!!

We just have October half term, Christmas holidays, Feb half term, Easter holidays, whit week (or May half term) and summer holidays.

My husband did refer to it as half term this week and I looked at him puzzled and told him it's Easter holidays not half term so yeah it doesn't make sense to me.

In Scotland the summer hols start at the end of June so you don’t really get a half term break after Easter. Just May Day but that’s just one day.

Yep, 2 dcs here and those holidays have always been called half term here.
Im actually discovering that not everyone says that 😳😳

Im in the north east.

I don’t really mind too much, but I agree it doesn’t seem to be factually correct to be calling Easter and summer holidays half term!

No-one I know calls those holidays half term but I’m familiar enough with the timing of school holidays to be able to figure out what they mean.

This is why I mentioned Whitsun because it's not a term anyone I'd heard use before.

The point about it being generational is interesting. My generation were the first proper social media generation, ie the ones to grow up with it, especially as teens. It's plausible things have become scewed because of that too.

I'm in the Midlands and call this holiday Easter. Half terms occur at October, February and May.

You may like this OP.

I had a really confusing conversation with DH.

He used nonplussed - which I though meant - surprised and confused that one is unsure how to react.

He used it like they do in parts of US - probably as he consumes more USA media and youtube than me - meaning not disconcerted - unperturbed.

He riles against staycation and misuse of half term but had picked this up without realsiing and insisted I was wrong and had meaning wrong way round.

Are there? I wonder if that has come about because people are using "half term" to mean a school holiday, so saying something like "Next half term we will cover..." is now confusing, whereas I don't remember anybody being confused by this when I was at school.

I’m responsible for sending out our school calendar and putting it on the website. Our dates show autumn term 1, half term break (October), autumn term 2, Christmas Holiday, spring term 1, half term break (February), spring term 2, Easter Holiday, summer term 1, half term break (May), summer term 2, end of school year (July).

It’s confused within school because most parents say “half term” when they are referring to the break e.g “we are going to Centre Parks this half term”; while staff refer to “half term” meaning the period of 6 or so weeks before the break e.g. “we’ll be looking at local history this half term”. Or “we have a fire drill once every half term” - a fire drill in the half term break would be pretty pointless!