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 just genuinely think people don’t think about what they’re saying. If I hear someone say ‘Easter half-term’ one more time I’m going to implode. I cannot stand it! Lol x

I say it. Because I need to use childcare services to some degree during almost all of them so DC always go to X club on Monday and Tuesday and so it all blurs together apart from our actual holidays.

I personally think being bothered to the point of actually caraing about it is a sign of being overinvested in school life. Can't imagine people currently annoyed by it cared at all before having kids in school or will think much about it once they've left.

I’m in my 50’s. Have always known the holidays (in order of start of school year) being Christmas holidays (2 weeks), Easter holidays (2 weeks) and summer holidays (around 6 weeks). And then a one week break, roughly in the middle of each which was called half-term. In my mind, it’s blooming simple!

As a few other posters have said - words do matter. And it’s a bit perplexing that some people don’t even know where they are re months of the year etc.

I do wonder if, with the age of the internet, people don’t talk/pass down info that just becomes ingrained in you?

I have a couple of thoughts about this (Scottish people you are absolved):

1. Performative ignorance is in play. People who have children at school but claim not to know what day or season it is are clearly lying. You HAVE to know so you don’t send them on Sundays or without the right kit.
2. The modern aversion to using the word “holidays”? No-one I know who has a job EVER has a holiday. They take “annual leave” or, heaven help us, “PTO”

I’m a teacher, sometimes it slips out. I’m so busy I don’t always have time to care if I name the break correctly, I’m just glad I’ve made it. I can’t believe this triggers you so much to create a post about it. Made me chuckle.

But thats the interesting thing, why would it slip out? Other things don't slip out, like I bet you don't say "it's midnight" when it's noon. ("oh I can't get worked up about it, you know it's the lunchtime midnight we have now, if we don't understand each other we can just check"). There's something that works for people about it. Maybe it does go with the decline of holidays.

Tbf, if you're in a school and talking about upcoming school holidays then half the time it will be a half-term and half the time it won't, so as someone who calls their own kids by the wrong name by mistake, I can see how that happens quite easily.

What I don't get is the faux 'oh are they different? I honestly wouldn't know and don't see why anyone would be confused as to which specific holiday I mean!'

Well that should be made illegal.

Pretty sure I call them all halfterm😁

Even Christmas and the upcoming Easter

But I'll never use the word hoover for vacuum cleaner or biro for pen ...

My partner the world's greatest pedant and language lover questioned me on this only yesterday and I shrug it off. It sounds nicer than holiday or break or anything 2 simple syllables. HALFTERM - lovely.

I also opt to never use 'fewer' and always say 'less' because it sounds softer and less syllables and I'll prioritise comfort and philharmony over grammar anyday.
Yes I am ridiculous and I do not mind in the slightest.

I never know what time of year it is really either, only vaguely so it could be tied into this and some kind of ADHD time blindness.
I will, now that I know its irksome, acknowledge it going forwards. Not saying I'll substitute it for the correct term (pun intended) but I will give a lil wink and blow a kiss so you know I know and I know you know . Poke poke poke xxx

@Shithotlawyer Your username checks out. I thoroughly enjoyed that 'rant' ( theres another word I use lazily and loosely that my partner, also legal background, cannot suffer. Words are important. They convey meaning...etc)

Honestly in my case alot of it is tied up in ND brain.
I am genuinely shocked when I discover that people misconstrue and misinterpret what I say, even though I have used totally inappropriate and inaccurate language. I am frustrated at their lack of ability to read my mind.

On the flipside I dont bother correcting my in-laws when they mistake pronouns even when it is momentarily confusing because I think they are referring to a girl when they say SHE instead of HE.

I'm also totally in favour of abolishing Bank Holiday Monday as a term too. BHM Thats a mouthful Holimonday / Bonus Sunday... I'm open to suggestions ideally with less syllables than the original...
I'll be thinking of you when the next BHM rolls 'round , and I genuinely, truly, honestly have no idea when that is ( Yes I worked corporate and went to school and have a child in school. That is just information I never "learned".)

Please write more. ❤️

Whereas @Specific 's username really doesn't check out

Irritates me too. Dont remember it being an issue years ago?

Who cares? You know what they mean.

Made even worse when Easter can vary more than 3 weeks from one year to the next. Also a lot of people cant think for themselves and just pick up on the latest words and jargon.

They think they are being cool.

Going to Uni was my pet hate from back in the day.

I don’t hear it where I am, BUT, I am enraged by the school having half term breaks, but simultaneously having terms one to six, thereby making a ‘half term’ break an impossibility.

either the terms are split into halves, and there are only three, or half term breaks no longer exist 😅

Another Scotland response.

half term in a new concept creeping in.

we have always had

easter
summer
tattie week
st Andrew’s weekend
Christmas.

then we had
in service days. Feb and may. Or bank holidays.

plus one exciting day each school could choose when to take. We were always June. beach day.

now we have a Feb half term. ????

and a may (2 days) half term that does not align with England.

next year we have one week overlap august, nothing else matches. Crazy.

so yes we are getting ready for lambing or Easter, and people five miles away are talking about half term.

I don't. If I hear "half-term" I assume they're talking about October, February or May.🤷‍♀️

Mine too and it’s v irritating I agree!

@sorrynotathome in my experiencd we dont say this in Scotland. Its the october holidays, xmas holidays, feb holidays easter holidays and summer holidays. Dont call any of them half term.

I do exactly this as well. I didn’t realise it wasn’t what everyone did! 🫣

My best friend works in a school and said this to me today. I just looked at her and said “Do you mean the Easter holidays?” She said “Yeah, like I said”. I then pulled her that the Easter holidays aren’t a half term and she looked at me as if I was making a mountain out of a molehill but, god this bothers me far too much! 🤣

Let's split the 6 terms into 12 quarter terms! And have a 2 hour longer weekend each time!!

The semiquavers of holidays.

Urgh I hate it.

My DD15 was talking about the upcoming ‘half term’ yesterday (as in the Easter holidays) and I resisted the urge to send her to her room/smack her in the face/disown her, which I think is testament to my supreme parenting 😇

Same. Every break I call half term. Even the summer holidays 😂

We all say things differently. Don't know why some people let it annoy them so much 😂

If it was obvious that the person might mean something other than what they said, then the conversation at cross-purposes wouldn’t have happened. You don’t necessarily know that you need to clarify, because the person has said something specific. It’s confusing precisely because they’ve said something they don’t mean without it necessarily being clear that they’re doing that. That’s why, as pps have said, it would be much less annoying if people would just say ‘school holidays’.

There’s such a lot of obtuseness on MN. Of course it’s annoying when people use really unclear language for no apparent reason.