Barneblad: The season of høst, autumn, or fall

Heidi Håvan Grosch Sparbu, Norway In American English this time of year is called fall. In British English it is called autumn. In Norwegian it is called høst. This season was originally just called harvest, because it was the time to bring in the crops. The word harvest actually comes from an old Norwegian word, haust, which means to gather or pick. The word in modern Norwegian (bokmål) is actually høst, which means to harvest. Aren’t words funny? When people started to move to the cities in the 1600s, harvesting wasn’t as important as watching the fall of the leaf, as the season was later called. Can you imagine telling someone that you are starting school in the fall of the leaf? That name quickly was shortened to fall. Autumn is also a very old word for this season, but no one really knows where it came from. There are many words that sound like it, like the Ol