down and dirty

yep, I was only confirming your membrance, Helen - plus I thought the dates of a few of the other fall usages were quite illuminating too.

But where they get that crap about UK English autumns referring to AUGUST I just have no idea! ~ I would have said anyone in the UK is likely to place that month as high summer, and autumn starting in September but. Anyone confirm or affirm otherwise?

But the more I think about this issue of prepositions, the more confusimicatedified I get... 'in Spring a young man's fancy' (example of the generic concept of all spring seasons) yet 'In the autumn I dislike the darkening evenings'... 'In winter I eat chilli' yet 'In the autumn I get chilly'... 'Autumn is a cruel time for digging potatoes' yet 'The autumn is one of my favo(u)rite times of year'...

and when I try to make sense of any possible patterns in other forms, such as referring to a week or the week ~ argh!