To get irritated by people who call every school holiday Half Term?

[sorrynotathome]

How can you not know that the half term holiday is in the middle of the term? After the first half and before the second half. At the end of term is the Easter, Summer or Christmas holidays. Do some people think Half Term is an English word for schools being closed? Now I’ve typed term so much it’s started to look weird.

I know this in jest but why would it be HALF five times???? I feel like knowing a half has two parts is basic knowledge.

I don't think it's bullying to be surprised that people don't have common knowledge.

I am really interested in how people don't know the seasons or time of year.

Your final question is something I ask myself everyday to be honest...

These threads are a great reminder of why neurodivergence is such an INVISIBLE illness and the insidious way in which their mental health can be impacted by people not being educated or having no concept of what its like.

**Neurodivergent individuals, ie. ADHD Autism, experience a profound lack of/ distorted, sense of time and place, commonly referred to as time blindness or time agnosia.
Important to remind the staunch opinion of MN is that it is not a matter of laziness, but a neurological difference in how the brain processes time, attention, and sensory input.

For context, I'm in my 30s
Only this year have I learned to check the weather forecast and dress accordingly.
Just last week I googled what degrees Celsius a person should stop wearing gloves (its 10°😉, meaning in Ireland should/could be wearing gloves from Nov-Apr)
About 3 years ago I researched all the bank / public holidays when I realised everyone else just knew them ( then I moved to London so the August one swapped from beginning of month to end of month or vice versa)

My mother also ND, 60s still doesnt know any public holidays so I used to chalk it down to never having been actively/passively taught but even now having researched it myself every so often. The info doesnt stick.
I have started to notice how my friends in Ireland would ask when I'm back and Id say next school break they'd say something like see you in , its every 6 weeks in the UK. They knew that. I remember being surprised.

Correct on the not knowing its hot or cold.
Abother one of ND gorgeous offerings is that it robs of us basic bodily knowledge. ND individuals have difficulty perceiving, interpreting, or regulating body temperature due to poor INTEROCEPTION —the internal sense of bodily sensations. This leads to overheating, dehydration, or failing to feel cold, as the brain fails to receive or process temperature signals properly.

There have been times a friend will ask me if I want to take of my jacket, my oh my, the relief I feel when I realise I was overheating (she asks because she can see my red face and has common sense etc).

All through School and University (fortunately they didnt administer the prerequisite 'half term knowledge' test and they let me in😜) I never had any 'proper' concept of time. I was always late no matter how hard I tried. I take twice as long as everyone to do everything. So yes I'm disabled in this way and am not great on knowing half terms but I set many timers and reminders in my phone to ensure I collect my child when they finish early and only once have I showed up to school on a holiday ( Dc was delighted to be able to change out of uniform abd have a free day).
Being like this has many disadvantages but in some ways its great, for my child they dont really care that I'm not super organised but I am extremely present with them because of this same affliction of living in a world with 2 time zones - Now and Not Now.

Its reasonable to feel surprised,
its even okay to express that shock if one really feels the need.
But suggesting someone should not have been granted access to 3rd level education extends beyond mere surprise!

You might know what you mean when you say it but everyone else won't. Why on Earth would you call Easter half term? To me, it's as nuts as calling it Christmas.

I don’t think it’s necessarily as black and white as I made out yesterday really…… sometimes it depends on the person saying it and the tone with which it’s said?

I have friends who if they said “you mean Easter?” I’d know were just jesting.

Whereas I also know people who are the type who think themselves superior and if they said it that way it would absolutely be a deliberate dig.

If a total stranger or someone I didn’t know very well said it would depend on the tone and inflection…..

I don’t know how much this varies by regional accent but if the voice goes up at the end it tends to implies a genuine question and it probably wouldn’t even register with me whereas a flat tone implies correction and that I’d probably notice and raise a slight eyebrow 🤨

I don’t use half term for everything btw, I would say Easter/over Christmas/over summer but equally I don’t bat an eyelid at people who use half term for all school holidays.

I can understand why a ND person might be confused but to an NT person it really shouldn’t matter to the extent that some posters on this thread get their knickers in a twist 🙄

What a fascinating post. Thank you.

You don’t know what month you’re currently in? Season?
I quite often don't "know" these things. As in I don't have an instant recall of it. Sometimes someone might say something about Christmas today for instance and I wouldn't instantly know if that was coming up soon. I would have to take a moment to think "where are we? Oh, March. OK, Christmas wad a few months ago. It is Easter soon". It's a quick moment but I do have to actively remember it rather than it being instaneously in my brain.

Same here, I was in the chemist on Friday picking up a prescription and panicked and thought oh shit, is my PPC still in date. All I know is it runs out in September, are we in September yet? Had to take a time to think, no its at the start of the year at the moment so Im fine for the certificate

I was talking to OH yesterday and referred to the end of this year as being 6 months away, I thought we were half way through the year.

No ND, just time blindness is a good descriptor though.

Well, it was light-hearted but I do think you need maths. Knowing that something can ONLY have two halves is basic maths.

Why on earth would this thread bother you enough to post about it? There are so many varied subjects on here that different people take an interest in. What a strange thing to be irritated about.

It was only lighthearted, no offence over here 😁 I actually only found out there were three terms because my friend went to Durham and started calling them “Michelmas” and “Epiphany”. Were it not for that, there’s a real danger I would have seen my own 3 DCs through school without the penny dropping…

And I still don’t know why it’s called a Mufti day.

Comes from the British in India in the 19th century. Meaning a soldier dressed out of uniform.

In Kent they are tag days.

Google is your friend here!

I'm not irritated by it, each to their own opinion, but I don't understand why op feels so strongly about it. If someone no longer has school aged children then why would they know what each holiday is called, equally why would they care? So much going on in the world

This kind of response makes me feel the same as a previous poster who mentioned faux naivety.

Everyone is sometimes irrationally and potentially disproportionately annoyed by various things that are immaterial to others. And everyone is perfectly capable of caring about things significant and trivial at the same time too.

If someone no longer has school aged children then why would they know what each holiday is called, equally why would they care?

As far as I am aware, parents don’t get their brains wiped when their last child leaves school. I don’t have any children but I still know that there are three terms each with a holiday half way through called, oddly enough, a half term holiday. It hasn’t changed since I was at school.

I care because I often interact with people who do have school age children whose lives seem to revolve around school holidays. It’s helpful to know exactly which holidays they are referring to.

As an American atheist who was very confused that British people refer to all school breaks as half term,, but call everything a bank holiday, I do understand why people don't want to use the Christian names as many don't actually celebrate.

But in the US, we call them Spring break, Labour Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, etc. I wish there was a happy medium for both bank holidays and term breaks, as it does bother me as well!

Had to join this thread as this gives me the rage! It’s not half term, no idea why people are calling it half term 🤦🏻‍♀️

Belief or otherwise in a deity is irrelevant and the whole point of this OP is that most British people don’t describe all school holidays as half term and traditionally never did so. My own experience is confined to England and Wales. Public schools used to call them half holidays. “Public holiday” has a different meaning in Scotland.

Not all public holidays are bank holidays and that’s relevant because bank holidays, which used to be given to bank employees, and when financial dealings were suspended, are a statutory entitlement.

We, too, have names for our various public holidays.

I cannot bear it. Even supposedly intelligent people are now doing this. It’s not a half term, you fools!