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.

Same here 😆 it’s not half term as it’s not half way through a term!

That's disappointed me, I loved assuming it was mostly Scots usage 😂

My mum does this but she's 79. It's quite outdated.

My partner's parents are mid 60s and that's where I first heard it. My parents are early-mid 50s and I've never heard them say it.

There are 3 terms in a school year, each broken half way through with a weeks half term holiday.
I've only heard it described otherwise on here or occasionally on fb by usually those I know aren't the sharpest.

Scotland too!

Christmas holidays,
Easter holidays,
Summer holidays,
September weekend,
October break

Feel free, we must all mute the things that bug us. I do it on accountancy threads because I can't cope with seeing people give incorrect advice.

That’s because until the late 60s, the bank holiday was always Whit Monday, the day after Whit Sunday, which was the 7th Sunday after Easter Sunday. So half term varied according to when Easter was that year. In 1965 the Government started a trial, which was confirmed by 1972, of fixing the bank holiday as the last Monday in May, so half term was also fixed.

Midlands and it amazes me it's not simply half term everywhere! We ALL call it that for every break.

I can't work out if this is sarcasm or not 😂

I only know Whitsun from the Philip Larkin poem.

I have always been:

• October, February and May (half terms)
• Christmas, Easter and summer holidays

But you're so close!

You call every holiday except Summer and Christmas "half term"

All you've got to do is start calling Easter Holiday, Easter Holiday and you're there!

Clue: Easter Holiday is the one with Easter in it.

I am from West Midlands - we always called Easter /christmas /summer plus half term.

raised my Ds in East Midlands always used the same terms .

it literally makes no sense to call Easter half term - there are school terms - so half term of what ?

I've also heard them call one of the bank holidays in May "spring bank." Guessing that's the one that isn't Whit Sunday?

I always hear them say spring bank and think "there are two bank holidays in May, both in spring, how do I know which they're talking about?"

I've had people argue that in Nottinghamshire everything is called half term but it's just incorrect. This is what the county council says

It was always a long weekend but now seems longer as the teachers take an I service day/or two around that time.

I'm not from the UK but everyone around me says half term, so I just accepted it and used it myself. But bemused by people who seem to smugly correctly others about its use! I can't bring myself to give a shit and I'm not really sure what counts as a term or half term. It's really a "fucking holiday in which I have to entertain my children and live in a tip" but that seems a bit of a mouthful.

It's really not 🤣 I've been calling it half term all week and so does everyone else! And Christmas!!!

This is me - but also from the midlands.
si you don’t have a Christmas holiday - it’s ’half Term’?

I grew up in the north west of England, lived in the south east and now in south Wales, and the usage everywhere I've been has matched this terminology.

Im from the midlands we call it half term, summer, Christmas and Easter holidays.

Same in London where i live.

Where I grew up you get people saying that "can you borrow me" is just regional variation

Yes, regional variation based on people being uneducated

I call it Christmas holidays but do have friends who say their kids have broken up for half term in December. Seems we've got problems within problems 😂

@Acc0untant I wonder if the social media thing exacerbated it's use because it's so much easier to have exposure to people from all over.

Exactly this. Social media has brought much more exposure to a broader range of people’s usual speaking patterns. So the great wide world of regional variation is there for all to see.

Unfortunately, for some people, it seems to be ‘my way or the highway’, so rather than be interested in the differences, they decide everyone else is wrong or stupid.