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The entry for him on the Museum of Modern Art website notes his "remarkable synthesis of romantic and pragmatic ideas," adding His work reflects a deep desire to humanize architecture through an unorthodox handling of form and materials that was both rational and intuitive. Influenced by the so-called International Style modernism (or functionalism, as it was called in Finland) and his acquaintance with leading modernists in Europe, including Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund and many of the artists and architects associated with the Bauhaus, Aalto created designs that had a profound impact on the trajectory of modernism before and after World War II. Biography. Life. Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto was born in Kuortane, Finland. His father, Johan Henrik Aalto, was a Finnish-speaking land-surveyor and his mother, Selma Matilda "Selly" (née Hackstedt) was a Swedish-speaking postmistress. When Aalto was 5 years old, the family moved to Alajärvi, and from there to Jyväskylä in Central Finland. He studied at the Jyväskylä Lyceum school, where he completed his basic education in 1916, and took drawing lessons from local artist Jonas Heiska. In 1916, he then enrolled to study architecture at the Helsinki University of Technology. His studies were interrupted by the Finnish Civil War, in which he fought. He fought on the side of the "White Army" and fought at the Battle of Länkipohja and the Battle of Tampere.
He built his first piece of architecture while a student; a house for his parents at Alajärvi. Later, he continued his education, graduating in 1921. In the summer of 1922 he began military service, finishing at Hamina reserve officer training school, and was promoted to reserve second lieutenant in June 1923. In 1920, while a student, Aalto made his first trip abroad, travelling via Stockholm to Gothenburg, where he briefly found work with architect Arvid Bjerke. In 1922, he accomplished his first independent piece at the Industrial Exposition in Tampere. In 1923, he returned to Jyväskylä, where he opened an architectural office under the name 'Alvar Aalto, Architect and Monumental Artist'. At that time he wrote articles for the Jyväskylä newspaper "Sisä-Suomi" under the pseudonym Remus. During this time, he designed a number of small single-family houses in Jyväskylä, and the office's workload steadily increased. On 6 October 1924, Aalto married architect Aino Marsio. Their honeymoon in Italy was Aalto's first trip there, though Aino had previously made a study trip there. The latter trip together sealed an intellectual bond with the culture of the Mediterranean region that remained important to Aalto for life.
On their return they continued with several local projects, notably the Jyväskylä Worker's Club, which incorporated a number of motifs which they had studied during their trip, most notably the decorations of the Festival hall modelled on the Rucellai Sepulchre in Florence by Leon Battista Alberti. After winning the architecture competition for the Southwest Finland Agricultural Cooperative building in 1927, the Aaltos moved their office to Turku. They had made contact with the city's most progressive architect, Erik Bryggman before moving. They began collaborating with him, most notably on the Turku Fair of 1928–29. Aalto's biographer, Göran Schildt, claimed that Bryggman was the only architect with whom Aalto cooperated as an equal. With an increasing quantity of work in the Finnish capital, the Aaltos' office moved again in 1933 to Helsinki. The Aaltos designed and built a joint house-office (1935–36) for themselves in Munkkiniemi, Helsinki, but later (1954–56) had a purpose-built office erected in the same neighbourhood – now the former is a "home museum" and the latter the premises of the Alvar Aalto Academy. In 1926, the young Aaltos designed and had built for themselves a summer cottage in Alajärvi, Villa Flora.
Aino and Alvar had two children, a daughter, Johanna "Hanni" (married surname Alanen; born 1925), and a son, Hamilkar Aalto (born 1928). Aino Aalto died of cancer in 1949. In 1952, Aalto married architect Elissa Mäkiniemi (died 1994). In 1952, he designed and built a summer cottage, the so-called Experimental House, for himself and his second wife, now Elissa Aalto, in Muuratsalo in Central Finland. Alvar Aalto died on 11 May 1976, in Helsinki, and is buried in the Hietaniemi cemetery in Helsinki. Elissa Aalto became the director of the practice, running the office from 1976 to 1994. In 1978, the Museum of Finnish Architecture in Helsinki arranged a major exhibition of Aalto's works. Architecture career. Early career: classicism. Although he is sometimes regarded as among the first and most influential architects of Nordic modernism, closer examination reveals that Aalto (while a pioneer in Finland) closely followed and had personal contacts with other pioneers in Sweden, in particular Gunnar Asplund and Sven Markelius. What they and many others of that generation in the Nordic countries shared was a classical education and an approach to classical architecture that historians now call Nordic Classicism. It was a style that had been a reaction to the previous dominant style of National Romanticism before moving, in the late 1920s, towards Modernism.
Upon returning to Jyväskylä in 1923 to establish his own architect's office, Aalto designed several single-family homes designed in the style of Nordic Classicism. For example, the manor-like house for his mother's cousin Terho Manner in Töysa (1923), a summer villa for the Jyväskylä chief constable (also from 1923) and the Alatalo farmhouse in Tarvaala (1924). During this period he completed his first public buildings, the Jyväskylä Workers' Club in 1925, the Jyväskylä Defence Corps Building in 1926 and the Seinäjoki Civil Guard House building in 1924–29. He entered several architectural competitions for prestigious state public buildings, in Finland and abroad. This included two competitions for the Finnish Parliament building in 1923 and 1924, the extension to the University of Helsinki in 1931, and the building to house the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1926–27. Aalto's first church design to be completed, Muurame church, illustrates his transition from Nordic Classicism to Functionalism.
This was the period when Aalto was most prolific in his writings, with articles for professional journals and newspapers. Among his most well-known essays from this period are "Urban culture" (1924), "Temple baths on Jyväskylä ridge" (1925), "Abbé Coignard's sermon" (1925), and "From doorstep to living room" (1926). Early career: functionalism. The shift in Aalto's design approach from classicism to modernism is epitomised by the Viipuri Library in Vyborg (1927–35), which went through a transformation from an originally classical competition entry proposal to the completed high-modernist building. His humanistic approach is in full evidence in the library: the interior displays natural materials, warm colours, and undulating lines. Due to problems related to financing, compounded by a change of site, the Viipuri Library project lasted eight years. During that time, Aalto designed the Standard Apartment Building (1928–29) in Turku, the Turun Sanomat Building (1929–30), and the Paimio Sanatorium (1929–32), which he designed in collaboration with his first wife Aino Aalto.
During that time, Aalto designed the Standard Apartment Building (1928–29) in Turku, the Turun Sanomat Building (1929–30), and the Paimio Sanatorium (1929–32), which he designed in collaboration with his first wife Aino Aalto. A number of factors contributed to Aalto's shift towards modernism: his increased familiarity with international trends, facilitated by his travels throughout Europe; the opportunity to experiment with concrete prefabrication in the Standard Apartment Building; the cutting-edge Le Corbusier-inspired formal language of the Turun Sanomat Building; and Aalto's application of both in the Paimio Sanatorium and in the ongoing design for the library. Although the Turun Sanomat Building and Paimio Sanatorium are comparatively pure modernist works, they carried the seeds of his questioning of such an orthodox modernist approach and a move to a more daring, synthetic attitude. It has been pointed out that the planning principle for Paimio Sanatorium – the splayed wings – was indebted to the Zonnestraal Sanatorium (1925–31) by Jan Duiker, which Aalto visited while it was under construction.
It has been pointed out that the planning principle for Paimio Sanatorium – the splayed wings – was indebted to the Zonnestraal Sanatorium (1925–31) by Jan Duiker, which Aalto visited while it was under construction. While these early Functionalist bear hallmarks of influences from Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and other key modernist figures of central Europe, Aalto nevertheless started to show his individuality in a departure from such norms with the introduction of organic references. Through Sven Markelius, Aalto became a member of the Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), attending the second congress in Frankfurt in 1929 and the fourth congress in Athens in 1933, where he established a close friendship with László Moholy-Nagy, Sigfried Giedion, and Philip Morton Shand. It was during this time that he closely followed the work of the main force driving the new modernism, Le Corbusier, visiting him in his Paris office several times in the following years.
Mid career: experimentation. During the 1930s Alvar spent some time experimenting with laminated wood, sculpture and abstract relief, characterized by irregular curved forms. Utilizing this knowledge, he was able to solve technical problems concerning the flexibility of wood while at the same time working out spatial issues in his designs. Aalto's early experiments with wood and his move away from a purist modernism would be tested in built form with the commission to design Villa Mairea (1939) in Noormarkku, the luxury home of young industrialist couple Harry and Maire Gullichsen. It was Maire Gullichsen who acted as the main client, and she worked closely not only with Alvar but also with Aino Aalto on the design, encouraging them to be more daring in their work. The building forms a U-shape around a central inner 'garden' whose central feature is a kidney-shaped swimming pool. Adjacent to the pool is a sauna executed in a rustic style, alluding to both Finnish and Japanese precedents. The design of the house is a synthesis of numerous stylistic influences, from traditional Finnish vernacular to purist modernism, as well as influences from English and Japanese architecture. While the house is clearly intended for a wealthy family, Aalto nevertheless argued that it was also an experiment that would prove useful in the design of mass housing.
His increased fame led to offers and commissions outside Finland. In 1941, he accepted an invitation as a visiting professor to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. During the Second World War, he returned to Finland to direct the Reconstruction Office. After the war, he returned to MIT, where he designed the student dormitory Baker House, completed in 1949. The dormitory flanked the Charles River, and its undulating form provided maximum view and ventilation for each resident. This was the first building of Aalto's redbrick period. Originally used in Baker House to signify the Ivy League university tradition, Aalto went on to use it in a number of key buildings after his return to Finland, most notably in several of the buildings in the new Helsinki University of Technology campus (starting in 1950), Säynätsalo Town Hall (1952), Helsinki Pensions Institute (1954), Helsinki House of Culture (1958), as well as in his own summer house, the Experimental House in Muuratsalo (1957). In the 1950s Aalto immersed himself in sculpting, exploring wood, bronze, marble, and mixed media. Among the notable works from this period is his 1960 memorial to the Battle of Suomussalmi. Located on the battlefield, it consists of a leaning bronze pillar on a pedestal.
Mature career: monumentalism. Foremost among Aalto's work from the early 1960s until his death in 1976 were his projects in Helsinki, in particular the huge town plan for the void in the centre of Helsinki adjacent to Töölö Bay and the vast railway yards, an area marked on the edges by significant buildings such as the National Museum and the main railway station, both by Eliel Saarinen. In his town plan, Aalto proposed a line of separate marble-clad buildings fronting the bay, which would house various cultural institutions, including a concert hall, opera, museum of architecture, and headquarters for the Finnish Academy. The scheme also extended into the Kamppi district with a series of tall office blocks. Aalto first presented his vision in 1961, but it went through various modifications during the early '60s. Only two fragments of the overall plan were realized: the Finlandia Hall concert hall (1976) fronting on Töölö Bay and an office building in the Kamppi district for the Helsinki Electricity Company (1975). Aalto also employed the Miesian formal language of geometric grids used in those buildings for other sites in Helsinki, including the Enso-Gutzeit headquarters building (1962), the Academic Bookstore (1962), and the SYP Bank building (1969).
Following Aalto's death in 1976, his office continued to operate under the direction of his widow Elissa, who oversaw the completion of works already designed (to some extent), among them the Jyväskylä City Theatre and Essen opera house. Since the death of Elissa Aalto, the office has continued to operate as the Alvar Aalto Academy, giving advice on the restoration of Aalto buildings and organizing the practice's vast archives. Furniture career. Although Aalto was famous for his architecture, his furniture designs were admired and are still popular today. He studied with the architect-designer Josef Hoffmann at the Wiener Werkstätte(engl.: "Vienna Workshop") and worked, for a time, under Eliel Saarinen. He also drew inspiration from Gebrüder Thonet. During the late 1920s and 1930s, he worked closely with Aino Aalto on his furniture designs, a focus due in part to his decision to design many of the individual furniture pieces and lamps for the Paimio Sanatorium. Of particular significance was the Aaltos' experimentation in bent plywood chairs, most notably the so-called Paimio chair, designed for tuberculosis patients, and the Model 60 stacking stool. The Aaltos, together with visual arts promoter Maire Gullichsen and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl, founded the Artek company in 1935, ostensibly to sell Aalto products but which also imported pieces by other designers. Aalto became the first furniture designer to use the cantilever principle in chair designs using wood.
Awards. Aalto's awards included Honorary Royal Designer for Industry from the Royal Society of Arts in 1947, the Prince Eugen Medal in 1954, the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1957 and the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects in 1963. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1957. He also was a member of the Academy of Finland, and was its president from 1963 to 1968. From 1925 to 1956 he was a member of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne. In 1960 he received an honorary doctorate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Works. Aalto's career spans the changes in style from (Nordic Classicism) to purist International Style Modernism to a more personal, synthetic, and idiosyncratic Modernism. Aalto's wide field of design activity ranges from large-scale projects such as city planning and architecture to more intimate, human-scale work in interior design, furniture and glassware design, and painting. It has been estimated that during his entire career Aalto designed over 500 individual buildings, approximately 300 of which were built. The vast majority of them are in Finland. He also has a few buildings in France, Germany, Italy, and the US.
Aalto's work with wood was influenced by early Scandinavian architects. His experiments and bold departures from aesthetic norms brought attention to his ability to make wood do things not previously done. His techniques in the way he cut beech wood, for example, and his ability to use plywood as a structural element while at the same time exploiting its aesthetic properties, were at once technically innovative and artistically inspired. Other examples of his boundary-pushing sensibility include the vertical placement of rough-hewn logs at his pavilion at the Lapua expo, a design element that evoked a medieval barricade. At the orchestra platform at Turku and the Paris expo at the World Fair, he used varying sizes and shapes of planks. Also at Paris (and at Villa Mairea), he utilized birch boards in a vertical arrangement. His Vyborg Library, built in what was then Viipuri (it became Vyborg after Soviet annexation in 1944), is acclaimed for its stunning ceiling, with its undulating waves of red-hearted pine (which grows in the region ). In his roofing, he created massive spans (155-foot at the covered stadium at Otaniemi), all without tie rods. In his stairway at Villa Mairea, he evokes the feeling of a natural forest by binding beech wood with withes into columns.
Aalto claimed that his paintings were not made as individual artworks but as part of his process of architectural design, and many of his small-scale "sculptural" experiments with wood led to later larger architectural details and forms. These experiments also led to a number of patents: for example, he invented a new form of laminated bent-plywood furniture in 1932 (which was patented in 1933). His experimental method had been influenced by his meetings with various members of the Bauhaus design school, especially László Moholy-Nagy, whom he first met in 1930. Aalto's furniture was exhibited in London in 1935, to great critical acclaim. To cope with the consumer demand, Aalto, together with his wife Aino, Maire Gullichsen, and Nils-Gustav Hahl founded the company Artek that same year. Aalto glassware (Aino as well as Alvar) is manufactured by Iittala. Aalto's 'High Stool' and 'Stool E60' (manufactured by Artek) are currently used in Apple Stores across the world to serve as seating for customers. Finished in black lacquer, the stools are used to seat customers at the 'Genius Bar' and also in other areas of the store at times when seating is required for a product workshop or special event. Aalto was also influential in bringing modern art to the attention of the Finnish people, in particular the work of his friends Alexander Milne Calder and Fernand Léger.
Critique of Aalto's architecture. As mentioned above, Aalto's international reputation was sealed with his inclusion in the second edition of Sigfried Giedion's influential book on Modernist architecture, "Space, Time and Architecture: The growth of a new tradition" (1949), in which Aalto received more attention than any other Modernist architect, including Le Corbusier. In his analysis of Aalto, Giedion gave primacy to qualities that depart from direct functionality, such as mood, atmosphere, intensity of life and even national characteristics, declaring that "Finland is with Aalto wherever he goes." More recently, however, some architecture critics and historians have questioned Aalto's influence on the historical canon. The Italian Marxist architecture historians Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co contend that Aalto's "historical significance has perhaps been rather exaggerated; with Aalto we are outside of the great themes that have made the course of contemporary architecture so dramatic. The qualities of his works have a meaning only as masterful distractions, not subject to reproduction outside the remote reality [sic] in which they have their roots." At the heart of their critique was the perception of Aalto's work as unsuited to the urban context: "Essentially, his architecture is not appropriate to urban typologies."
At the other end of the political spectrum (though similarly concerned with the appropriateness of Aalto's formal language), the American cultural theorist and architectural historian Charles Jencks singled out his Pensions Institute as an example of what he termed the architect's "soft paternalism": "Conceived as a fragmented mass to break up the feeling of bureaucracy, it succeeds all too well in being humane and killing the pensioner with kindness. The forms are familiar – red brick and ribbon-strip windows broken by copper and bronze elements – all carried through with a literal-mindedness that borders on the soporific." During his lifetime, Aalto faced criticisms from his fellow architects in Finland, most notably Kirmo Mikkola and Juhani Pallasmaa. By the last decade of Aalto's life, his work was seen as unfashionably individualistic at a time when the opposing tendencies of rationalism and constructivism – often championed under left-wing politics – argued for anonymous, aggressively non-aesthetic architecture. Of Aalto's late works, Mikkola wrote, "Aalto has moved to [a] baroque line..." Memorials. Aalto has been commemorated in a number of ways: Further reading. Göran Schildt has written and edited many books on Aalto, the most well-known being the three-volume biography, usually referred to as the definitive biography on Aalto. Other books Aalto research External links. Archives Resources Catalogs Buildings and reviews
Comparison of American and British English The English language was introduced to the Americas by the arrival of the English, beginning in the late 16th century. The language also spread to numerous other parts of the world as a result of British trade and settlement and the spread of the former British Empire, which, by 1921, included 470–570 million people, about a quarter of the world's population. In England, Wales, Ireland and especially parts of Scotland there are differing varieties of the English language, so the term 'British English' is an oversimplification. Likewise, spoken American English varies widely across the country. Written forms of British and American English as found in newspapers and textbooks vary little in their essential features, with only occasional noticeable differences. Over the past 400 years, the forms of the language used in the Americas—especially in the United States—and that used in the United Kingdom have diverged in a few minor ways, leading to the versions now often referred to as American English and British English. Differences between the two include pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary (lexis), spelling, punctuation, idioms, and formatting of dates and numbers. However, the differences in written and most spoken grammar structure tend to be much fewer than in other aspects of the language in terms of mutual intelligibility. A few words have completely different meanings in the two versions or are even unknown or not used in one of the versions. One particular contribution towards integrating these differences came from Noah Webster, who wrote the first American dictionary (published 1828) with the intention of unifying the disparate dialects across the United States and codifying North American vocabulary which was not present in British dictionaries.
This divergence between American English and British English has provided opportunities for humorous comment: e.g. in fiction George Bernard Shaw says that the United States and United Kingdom are "two countries divided by a common language"; and Oscar Wilde says that "We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, the language" ("The Canterville Ghost", 1888). Henry Sweet incorrectly predicted in 1877 that within a century American English, Australian English and British English would be mutually unintelligible ("A Handbook of Phonetics"). Perhaps increased worldwide communication through radio, television, and the Internet has tended to reduce regional variation. This can lead to some variations becoming extinct (for instance "the wireless" being progressively superseded by "the radio") or the acceptance of wide variations as "perfectly good English" everywhere. Although spoken American and British English are generally mutually intelligible, there are occasional differences which may cause embarrassment—for example, in American English a "rubber" is usually interpreted as a "condom" rather than an "eraser".
Pronunciation. Several pronunciation patterns contrast American and British English accents. The following lists a few common ones. Most American accents are rhotic, preserving the historical phoneme in all contexts, while most British accents of England and Wales are non-rhotic, only preserving this sound before vowels but dropping it in all other contexts; thus, "farmer" rhymes with "llama" for Brits but not Americans. American accents tend to raise the tongue whenever the phoneme (in words like ) occurs before the consonants and . British accents distinguish the vowel sounds in , , and , while American accents merge the and vowels together, and about 50% of Americans additionally merge the vowel with the previous two, so for example "odd", "façade", and "thawed" can all rhyme. Many regional and informal accents of England, but none in North America, exhibit H-dropping. Words like "bitter" and "bidder" are pronounced the same in North America, but not England, due to a phenomenon called flapping involving and between vowels. British accents pronounce between vowels in other ways than Americans, including with a glottal stop or with an aspirated .
Vocabulary. The familiarity of speakers with words and phrases from different regions varies, and the difficulty of discerning an unfamiliar definition also depends on the context and the term. As expressions spread with telecommunications, they are often but not always understood as foreign to the speaker's dialect, and words from other dialects may carry connotations with regard to register, social status, origin, and intelligence. Words and phrases with different meanings. Words such as "bill" and "biscuit" are used regularly in both AmE and BrE but can mean different things in each form. The word "bill" has several meanings, most of which are shared between AmE and BrE. However, in AmE "bill" often refers to a piece of paper money (as in a "dollar bill") which in BrE is more commonly referred to as a note. In AmE it can also refer to the visor of a cap, though this is by no means common. In AmE a biscuit (from the French "twice baked" as in biscotto) is a soft bready product that is known in BrE as a scone or a specifically hard, sweet biscuit. Meanwhile, a BrE biscuit incorporates both dessert biscuits and AmE cookies (from the Dutch 'little cake').
As chronicled by Winston Churchill, the opposite meanings of the verb "to table" created a misunderstanding during a meeting of the Allied forces; in BrE to table an item on an agenda means to "open it up" for discussion whereas in AmE, it means to "remove" it from discussion, or at times, to suspend or delay discussion; e.g. "Let's table that topic for later". Similarly, the word "moot" (and "moot point") in BrE means 'remains open to debate' whereas in AmE, it means 'of no practical significance', irrelevant. The word "football" in BrE refers to association football, also known in the US as soccer. In AmE, "football" means American football. The standard AmE term "soccer", a contraction of "association (football)", is actually of British origin, derived from the ratification of different codes of football in the 19th century, and was a fairly unremarkable usage (possibly marked for class) in BrE until later; in Britain it became perceived as an Americanism. Outside North America, particularly in sports news, American (or US branches of foreign) news agencies and media companies also use "football" to mean "soccer", especially in direct quotes.
Similarly, the word "hockey" in BrE often refers to field hockey and in AmE, "hockey" usually means ice hockey. Words with completely different meanings are relatively few; most of the time there are either (1) words with one or more shared meanings and one or more meanings unique to one variety (for example, bathroom and toilet) or (2) words the meanings of which are actually common to both BrE and AmE but that show differences in frequency, connotation or denotation (for example, "smart", "clever", "mad"). Some differences in usage and meaning can cause confusion or embarrassment. For example, the word "fanny" is a slang word for vulva in BrE but means buttocks in AmE, hence the AmE phrase "fanny pack" is "bum bag" in BrE. In AmE the word "pissed" means being annoyed or angry whereas in BrE it is a coarse word for being drunk (in both varieties, "pissed off" means irritated). Similarly, in AmE the word "pants" is the common word for the BrE "trousers" and (in AmE) "knickers" refers to a variety of half-length trousers (though most AmE users would use the term "shorts" rather than knickers), while the majority of BrE speakers would understand "pants" to mean "underpants" and "knickers" to mean "female underpants".
Sometimes the confusion is more subtle. In AmE the word "quite" used as a qualifier is generally a reinforcement, though it is somewhat uncommon in actual colloquial American use today and carries an air of formality: for example, "I'm quite hungry" is a very polite way to say "I'm very hungry". In BrE "quite" (which is much more common in conversation) may have this meaning, as in "quite right" or "quite mad", but it more commonly means "somewhat", so that in BrE "I'm quite hungry" can mean "I'm somewhat hungry". This divergence of use can lead to misunderstanding. Different terms in different dialects. Most speakers of American English are aware of some uniquely British terms. It is generally very easy to guess what some words, such as BrE "driving licence", mean, the AmE equivalent being "driver's license". However, use of many other British words such as "naff" (slang but commonly used to mean "not very good") are unheard of in American English. Speakers of BrE usually find it easy to understand most common AmE terms, such as "sidewalk (pavement or footpath)", "gas (gasoline/petrol)", "counterclockwise (anticlockwise)" or "elevator (lift)", thanks in large part to considerable exposure to American popular culture and literature. Terms heard less often, especially when rare or absent in American popular culture, such as "copacetic (very satisfactory)", are unlikely to be understood by most BrE speakers.
Other examples: Holiday greetings. It is increasingly common for Americans to say "Happy holidays", referring to all, or at least multiple, winter (in the Northern hemisphere) or summer (in the Southern hemisphere) holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc.) especially when one's religious observances are not known; the phrase is rarely heard in the UK. In the UK, the phrases "holiday season" and "holiday period" refer to the period in the summer when most people take time off from work, and travel; AmE does not use "holiday" in this sense, instead using "vacation" for recreational excursions. In AmE, the prevailing Christmas greeting is "Merry Christmas", which is the traditional English Christmas greeting, as found in the English Christmas carol "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", and which appears several times in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". In BrE, "Happy Christmas" is a common alternative to "Merry Christmas". Idiosyncratic differences. Omission of "and" and "on". Generally in British English, numbers with a value over one hundred have the word "and" inserted before the last two digits. For example, the number 115, when written in words or spoken aloud, would be "One hundred "and" fifteen", in British English. In American English, numbers are typically said or written in words in the same way, however if the word "and" is omitted ("One hundred fifteen"), this is also considered acceptable (in BrE this would be considered grammatically incorrect).
Likewise, in the US, the word "on" can be left out when referring to events occurring on any particular day of the week. The US possibility "The Cowboys won the game Sunday" would have the equivalent in the UK of "Sheffield United won the match on Sunday." Figures of speech. Both BrE and AmE use the expression "I couldn't care less", to mean that the speaker does not care at all. Some Americans use "I could care less" to mean the same thing. This variant is frequently derided as sloppy, as the literal meaning of the words is that the speaker "does" care to some extent. In both areas, saying, "I don't mind" often means, "I'm not annoyed" (for example, by someone's smoking), while "I don't care" often means, "The matter is trivial or boring". However, in answering a question such as "Tea or coffee?", if either alternative is equally acceptable an American may answer, "I don't care", while a British person may answer, "I don't mind". Either can sound odd, confusing, or rude, to those accustomed to the other variant.
"To be "all set" in both BrE and AmE can mean "to be prepared or ready", though it appears to be more common in AmE. It can also have an additional meaning in AmE of "to be finished or done", for example, a customer at a restaurant telling a waiter "I'm all set. I'll take the check." Equivalent idioms. A number of English idioms that have essentially the same meaning show lexical differences between the British and the American version; for instance: In the US, a "carpet" typically refers to a fitted carpet, rather than a rug. Social and cultural differences. Lexical items that reflect separate social and cultural development. Education. Primary and secondary school. The US has a more uniform nationwide system of terms than does the UK, where terminology and structure varies among constituent countries, but the division by grades varies somewhat among the states and even among local school districts. For example, "elementary school" often includes kindergarten and may include sixth grade, with "middle school" including only two grades or extending to ninth grade.
In the UK, the US equivalent of a "high school" is often referred to as a "secondary school" regardless of whether it is state funded or private. US Secondary education also includes "middle school" or "junior high school", a two- or three-year transitional school between elementary school and high school. "Middle school" is sometimes used in the UK as a synonym for the younger "junior school", covering the second half of the primary curriculum, current years four to six in some areas. However, in Dorset (South England), it is used to describe the second school in the three-tier system, which is normally from year 5 to year 8. In other regions, such as Evesham and the surrounding area in Worcestershire, the second tier goes from year 6 to year 8, and both starting secondary school in year nine. In Kirklees, West Yorkshire, in the villages of the Dearne Valley there is a three tier system: first schools year reception to year five, middle school (Scissett/Kirkburton Middle School) year 6 to year 8, and high school year 9 to year 13.
A "public school" has opposite meanings in the two countries. In American English this is a government-owned institution open to all students, supported by public funding. The British English use of the term is in the context of "private" education: to be educated privately with a tutor. In England and Wales the term strictly refers to an ill-defined group of prestigious private independent schools funded by students' fees, although it is often more loosely used to refer to any independent school. Independent schools are also known as "private schools", and the latter is the term used in Scotland and Northern Ireland for all such fee-funded schools. Strictly, the term "public school" is not used in Scotland and Northern Ireland in the same sense as in England, but nevertheless Gordonstoun, the Scottish private school, is sometimes referred to as a "public school", as are some other Scottish private schools. Government-funded schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland are properly referred to as "state schools" but are sometimes confusingly referred to as "public schools" (with the same meaning as in the US), and in the US, where most public schools are administered by local governments, a "state school" typically refers to a college or university run by one of the U.S. states.
Speakers in both the United States and the United Kingdom use several additional terms for specific types of secondary school. A US "prep school" or "preparatory school" is an independent school funded by tuition fees; the same term is used in the UK for a private school for pupils under 13, designed to prepare them for fee-paying public schools. In the US, "Catholic schools" cover costs through tuition and have affiliations with a religious institution, most often a Catholic church or diocese. In England, where the state-funded education system grew from parish schools arranged by the local established church, the Church of England (C of E, or CE), and many schools, especially primary schools (up to age 11) retain a church connection and are known as "church schools", "CE schools" or "CE (aided) schools". There are also "faith schools" associated with the Roman Catholic Church and other major faiths, with a mixture of funding arrangements. In Scotland, Catholic schools are generally operated as government-funded state schools for Catholic communities, particularly in large cities such as Glasgow.
In the US, a "magnet school" receives government funding and has special admission requirements: in some cases pupils gain admission through superior performance on admission tests, while other magnet schools admit students through a lottery. The UK has city academies, which are independent privately sponsored schools run with public funding and which can select up to 10% of pupils by aptitude. Moreover, in the UK 36 local education authorities retain selection by ability at 11. They maintain grammar schools (state funded secondary schools), which admit pupils according to performance in an examination (known as the 11+) and comprehensive schools that take pupils of all abilities. Grammar schools select the most academically able 10% to 23% of those who sit the exam. Students who fail the exam go to a secondary modern school, sometimes called a "high school", or increasingly an "academy". In areas where there are no grammar schools the comprehensives likewise may term themselves high schools or academies. Nationally only 6% of pupils attend grammar schools, mainly in four distinct counties. Some private schools are called "grammar schools", chiefly those that were grammar schools long before the advent of state education.
University. In the UK a university student is said to "study", to "read" or, informally, simply to "do" a subject. In the recent past the expression 'to read a subject' was more common at the older universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. In the US a student "studies" or "majors in" a subject (although a student's "major", "concentration" or, less commonly, "emphasis" is also used in US colleges or universities to refer to the major subject of study). "To major in" something refers to the student's principal course of study; "to study" may refer to any class being taken. BrE: AmE: At university level in BrE, each "module" is taught or facilitated by a "lecturer" or "tutor"; "professor" is the job-title of a senior academic (in AmE, at some universities, the equivalent of the BrE lecturer is instructor, especially when the teacher has a lesser degree or no university degree, though the usage may become confusing according to whether the subject being taught is considered technical or not; it is also different from adjunct instructor/professor). In AmE each "class" is generally taught by a "professor" (although some US tertiary educational institutions follow the BrE usage), while the position of "lecturer" is occasionally given to individuals hired on a temporary basis to teach one or more classes and who may or may not have a doctoral degree.
The word "course" in American use typically refers to the study of a restricted topic or individual subject (for example, "a course in Early Medieval England", "a course in integral calculus") over a limited period of time (such as a semester or term) and is equivalent to a "module" or sometimes "unit" at a British university. In the UK, a "course of study" or simply "course" is likely to refer to the entire curriculum, which may extend over several years and be made up of any number of "modules," hence it is also practically synonymous to a degree programme. A few university-specific exceptions exist: for example, at Cambridge the word "paper" is used to refer to a "module", while the whole course of study is called "tripos". A "dissertation" in AmE refers to the final written product of a doctoral student to meet the requirement of that curriculum. In BrE, the same word refers to the final written product of a student in an undergraduate or taught master's programme. A dissertation in the AmE sense would be a thesis in BrE, though "dissertation" is also used.
Another source of confusion is the different usage of the word "college". (See a full international discussion of the various meanings at college.) In the US, it refers to a post-high school institution that grants either associate's or bachelor's degrees, and in the UK, it refers to any post-secondary institution that is not a university (including "sixth form college" after the name in secondary education for years 12 and 13, the "sixth form") where intermediary courses such as A levels or NVQs can be taken and GCSE courses can be retaken. College may sometimes be used in the UK or in Commonwealth countries as part of the name of a secondary or high school (for example, Dubai College). In the case of the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen, London, Lancaster, Durham, Kent and York, all members are also members of a college which is part of the university, for example, one is a member of King's College, Cambridge and hence of the university.
In the context of higher education, the word "school" is used slightly differently in BrE and AmE. In BrE, except for the University of London, the word school is used to refer to an academic department in a university. In AmE, the word school is used to refer to a collection of related academic departments and is headed by a dean. When it refers to a division of a university, school is practically synonymous to a college. "Professor" has different meanings in BrE and AmE. In BrE it is the highest academic rank, followed by reader, senior lecturer and lecturer. In AmE "professor" refers to academic staff of all ranks, with (full) professor (largely equivalent to the UK meaning) followed by associate professor and assistant professor. "Tuition" has traditionally had separate meaning in each variation. In BrE it is the educational content transferred from teacher to student at a university. In AmE it is the money (the fees) paid to receive that education (BrE: tuition fees). General terms. In both the US and the UK, a student "takes" an exam, but in BrE a student can also be said to "sit" an exam. When preparing for an exam students "revise" (BrE)/"review" (AmE) what they have studied; the BrE idiom "to revise for" has the equivalent "to review for" in AmE.
Examinations are supervised by "invigilators" in the UK and "proctors" (or "(exam) supervisors") in the US (a "proctor" in the UK is an official responsible for student discipline at the University of Oxford or Cambridge). In the UK a teacher first "sets" and then "administers" exam, while in the US, a teacher first "writes", "makes", "prepares", etc. and then "gives" an exam. With the same basic meaning of the latter idea but with a more formal or official connotation, a teacher in the US may also "administer" or "proctor" an exam. BrE: AmE: In BrE, students are awarded "marks" as credit for requirements (e.g., tests, projects) while in AmE, students are awarded "points" or "grades" for the same. Similarly, in BrE, a candidate's work is being "marked", while in AmE it is said to be "graded" to determine what mark or grade is given. There is additionally a difference between American and British usage in the word "school". In British usage "school" by itself refers only to primary (elementary) and secondary (high) schools and to "sixth forms" attached to secondary schools—if one "goes to school", this type of institution is implied. By contrast an American student at a university may be "in/at school", "coming/going to school", etc. US and British law students and medical students both commonly speak in terms of going to "law school" and "med[ical] school", respectively. However, the word "school" is used in BrE in the context of higher education to describe a division grouping together several related subjects within a university, for example a "School of European Languages" containing "departments" for each language and also in the term "art school". It is also the name of some of the constituent colleges of the University of London, for example, School of Oriental and African Studies, London School of Economics.
Among high-school and college students in the United States, the words "freshman" (or the gender-neutral terms "first year" or sometimes "freshie"), "sophomore", "junior" and "senior" refer to the first, second, third and fourth years respectively. It is important that the context of either high school or college first be established or else it must be stated directly (that is, "She is a high-school freshman". "He is a college junior."). Many institutes in both countries also use the term "first-year" as a gender-neutral replacement for "freshman", although in the US this is recent usage, formerly referring only to those in the first year as a graduate student. One exception is the University of Virginia; since its founding in 1819 the terms "first-year", "second-year", "third-year", and "fourth-year" have been used to describe undergraduate university students. At the United States service academies, at least those operated by the federal government directly, a different terminology is used, namely "fourth class", "third class", "second class" and "first class" (the order of numbering being the reverse of the number of years in attendance). In the UK first-year university students are sometimes called "freshers" early in the academic year; however, there are no specific names for those in other years nor for school pupils; “freshers’ week” or simply “freshers” is colloquially, but increasingly commonly, used to refer to the first few weeks of the academic year, typically when students get to know the university's campus, join extra-curricular clubs and associations, and even going out for the night for drinking and to go to night clubs. Graduate and professional students in the United States are known by their year of study, such as a "second-year medical student" or a "fifth-year doctoral candidate." Law students are often referred to as "1L", "2L" or "3L" rather than “"n"th-year law students"; similarly, medical students are frequently referred to as "M1", "M2", "M3" or "M4".
While anyone in the US who finishes studying at any educational institution by passing relevant examinations is said to "graduate" and to be a "graduate", in the UK only degree and above level students can "graduate". "Student" itself has a wider meaning in AmE, meaning any person of any age studying any subject at any level (including those not doing so at an educational institution, such as a "piano student" taking private lessons in a home), whereas in BrE it tends to be used for people studying at a post-secondary educational institution and the term "pupil" is more widely used for a young person at primary or secondary school, though the use of "student" for secondary school pupils in the UK is increasingly used, particularly for "sixth form" (years 12 and 13). The names of individual institutions can be confusing. There are several high schools with the word "university" in their names in the United States that are not affiliated with any post-secondary institutions and cannot grant degrees, and there is one public high school, Central High School of Philadelphia, that does grant bachelor's degrees to the top 10% of graduating seniors. British secondary schools occasionally have the word "college" in their names.
When it comes to the admissions process, applicants are usually asked to solicit "letters of reference" or reference forms from referees in BrE. In AmE, these are called "letters of recommendation" or recommendation forms. Consequently, the writers of these letters are known as "referees" and "recommenders", respectively by country. In AmE, the word "referee" is nearly always understood to refer to an umpire of a sporting match. In the context of education, for AmE, the word "staff" mainly refers to school personnel who are neither administrators nor have teaching loads or academic responsibilities; personnel who have academic responsibilities are referred to as members of their institution's "faculty." In BrE, the word "staff" refers to both academic and non-academic school personnel. As mentioned previously, the term "faculty" in BrE refers more to a collection of related academic departments. Government and politics. In the UK, political candidates "stand for election", while in the US, they "run for office". There is virtually no crossover between BrE and AmE in the use of these terms. Additionally, the document which contains a party's positions/principles is referred to as a "party platform" in AmE, whereas it is commonly known as a "party manifesto" in BrE. (In AmE, using the term "manifesto" may connote that the party is an extremist or radical association). The term "general election" is used slightly differently in British and American English. In BrE, it refers exclusively to a nationwide parliamentary election and is differentiated from local elections (mayoral and council) and by-elections; whereas in AmE, it refers to a final election for any government position in the US, where the term is differentiated from the term "primary" (an election that determines a party's candidate for the position in question). Additionally, a "by-election" in BrE is called a "special election" in AmE.
In AmE, the term "swing state", "swing county", "swing district" is used to denote a jurisdiction/constituency where results are expected to be close but crucial to the overall outcome of the general election. In BrE, the term "marginal constituency" is more often used for the same and "swing" is more commonly used to refer to how much one party has gained (or lost) an advantage over another compared to the previous election. In the UK, the term "government" only refers to what is commonly known in America as the "executive branch" or the particular "administration". A local government in the UK is generically referred to as the "council," whereas in the United States, a local government will be generically referred to as the "City" (or county, village, etc., depending on what kind of entity the government serves). Business and finance. In financial statements, what is referred to in AmE as "revenue" or "sales" is known in BrE as "turnover." In AmE, having "high turnover" in a business context would generally carry negative implications, though the precise meaning would differ by industry.
A bankrupt firm "goes into administration" or liquidation in BrE; in AmE it "goes bankrupt", or "files for Chapter 7" (liquidation) or "Chapter 11" (reorganisation), both of which refer to the legal authority under which bankruptcy is commenced. An insolvent individual or partnership "goes bankrupt" in both BrE and AmE. If a finance company takes possession of a mortgaged property from a debtor, it is called "foreclosure" in AmE and "repossession" in BrE. In some limited scenarios, "repossession" may be used in AmE, but it is much less common compared to "foreclosure". One common exception in AmE is for automobiles, which are always said to be "repossessed". Indeed, an agent who collects these cars for the bank is colloquially known in AmE as a "repo man". Employment and recruitment. In BrE, the term "CV" — as an abbreviation of "curriculum vitae", that is used infrequently — is used to describe the document prepared by applicants containing their credentials required for a job. In AmE, the term "résumé" is more commonly used, with "CV" primarily used in academic or research contexts, and is usually more comprehensive than a "résumé". As AmE has a severe aversion to the use of accented letters, "résumé" is often written just as "resume", which in BrE is often misinterpreted as to "carry on from where left off" thus causing much confusion.
Insurance. AmE distinguishes between "coverage" as a noun and "cover" as a verb; an American seeks to buy enough insurance coverage in order to adequately cover a particular risk. BrE uses the word "cover" for both the noun and verb forms. Transport. AmE speakers refer to "transportation" and BrE speakers to "transport". ("Transportation" in the UK has traditionally meant the punishment of criminals by deporting them to an overseas penal colony.) In AmE, the word "transport" is usually used only as a verb, seldom as a noun or adjective except in reference to certain special objects, such as a "tape transport" or a "military transport" (e.g., a troop transport, a kind of vehicle, not an act of transporting). Road transport. Differences in terminology are especially obvious in the context of roads. The British term "dual carriageway", in American parlance, would be "divided highway" or perhaps, simply "highway". The "central reservation" on a "motorway" or "dual carriageway" in the UK would be the "median" or "center divide" on a "freeway", "expressway", "highway" or "parkway" in the US. The one-way lanes that make it possible to enter and leave such roads at an intermediate point without disrupting the flow of traffic are known as "slip roads" in the UK but in the US, they are typically known as "ramps" and both further distinguish between "on-ramps" or "on-slips" (for entering onto a highway/carriageway) and "off-ramps" or "exit-slips" (for leaving a highway/carriageway). When American engineers speak of "slip roads", they are referring to a street that runs alongside the main road (separated by a berm) to allow off-the-highway access to the premises that are there; however, the term "frontage road" is more commonly used, as this term is the equivalent of "service road" in the UK. However, it is not uncommon for an American to use "service road" as well instead of "frontage road".
In the UK, the term "outside lane" refers to the higher-speed "overtaking lane" ("passing lane" in the US) closest to the middle of the road, while "inside lane" refers to the lane closer to the edge of the road. In the US, "outside lane" is used only in the context of a turn, in which case it depends in which direction the road is turning (i.e., if the road bends right, the left lane is the "outside lane", but if the road bends left, it is the right lane). Both also refer to "slow" and "fast" lanes (even though all actual traffic speeds may be at or around the legal speed limit). In the UK "drink driving" refers to driving after having consumed alcoholic beverages, while in the US, the term is "drunk driving". The legal term in the US is "driving while intoxicated" (DWI) or "driving under the influence (of alcohol)" (DUI). The equivalent legal phrase in the UK is "drunk in charge of a motor vehicle" (DIC) or more commonly "driving with excess alcohol". In the UK, a hire car is the US equivalent of a rental car. The term "hire car" can be especially misleading for those in the US, where the term "hire" is generally only applied to the employment of people and the term "rent" is applied to the temporary custody of goods. To an American, "hire car" would imply that the car has been brought into the employment of a company as if it were a person, which would sound nonsensical.
In the UK, a saloon is a vehicle that is equivalent to the American sedan. This is particularly confusing to Americans, because in the US the term "saloon" is used in only one context: describing an old bar (UK pub) in the American West (a Western saloon). "Coupé" is used by both to refer to a two-door car, but is usually pronounced with two syllables in the UK (coo-pay) and one syllable in the US (coop). In the UK, "van" may refer to a small lorry (UK), whereas in the US, "van" is only understood to be a very small, boxy truck (US) (such as a "moving van") or a long passenger automobile with several rows of seats (such as a "minivan"). A large, long vehicle used for cargo transport would nearly always be called a "truck" in the US, though alternate terms such as "eighteen-wheeler" may be occasionally heard (regardless of the actual number of tires (UK tyres) on the truck). "Truck", in the UK, is normally used for smaller heavy vehicles — always non-articulated — with specific roles, such as a "break-down truck", whereas a large long vehicle is a "lorry" or "HGV" (heavy goods vehicle), which will be an "artic" (an abbreviation of articulated — though this is often confused with the name "Arctic").
In the UK, a silencer is the equivalent to the US muffler. In the US, the word silencer has only one meaning: an attachment on the barrel of a gun designed to decrease the volume of the gunshot to either ear-safe levels or at least lower levels depending on the caliber; although they are popularly believed to completely hide the sound of the gunshot. Specific auto parts and transport terms have different names in the two dialects, for example: Rail transport. There are also differences in terminology in the context of rail transport. The best known is "railway" in the UK and "railroad" in North America, but there are several others. A "railway station" in the UK is a "railroad station" in the US, while "train station" is used in both; trains have "drivers" (often called "engine drivers") in the UK, while in America trains are driven by "engineers"; trains have "guards" in the UK and "conductors" in the US, though the latter is also common in the UK; a place where two tracks meet is called a set of "points" in the UK and a "switch" in the US; and a place where a road crosses a railway line at ground level is called a "level crossing" in the UK and a "grade crossing" or "railroad crossing" in America.
and a place where a road crosses a railway line at ground level is called a "level crossing" in the UK and a "grade crossing" or "railroad crossing" in America. In the UK, the term "sleeper" is used for the devices that bear the weight of the rails and are known as "ties" or "crossties" in the United States. In a rail context, "sleeper" (more often, "sleeper car") would be understood in the US as a rail car with sleeping quarters for its passengers. The British term "platform" in the sense "The train is at Platform 1" would be known in the US by the term "track", and used in the phrase "The train is on Track 1". The American term for the British "return journey" is "round trip". The British term "brake van" or "guard's van" is a "caboose" in the US. The American English phrase "All aboard" when boarding a train is rarely used in the UK, and when the train reaches its final stop, in the UK the phrase used by rail personnel is "All change" while in the US it is "All out", though such announcements are uncommon in both regions.
For sub-surface rail networks, while "underground" is commonly used in the UK, only the London Underground actually carries this name: the UK's only other such system, the smaller Glasgow Subway, was in fact the first to be called "subway". Nevertheless, both "subway" and "metro" are now more common in the US, varying by city: in Washington D.C., for example, "metro" is used, while in New York City "subway" is preferred. Another variation is the "T" in Boston. Television. Traditionally, a "show" on British television would have referred to a light-entertainment programme (AmE "program") with one or more performers and a participative audience, whereas in American television, the term is used for any type of program. British English traditionally referred to other types of programme by their type, such as drama, serial etc., but the term "show" has now taken on the general American meaning. In American television the episodes of a program first broadcast in a particular year constitute a "season", the entire run of the program—which may span several seasons—is called a "series". In British television, on the other hand, the word "series" may apply to the episodes of a programme in one particular year, for example, "The 1998 series of "Grange Hill", as well as to the entire run. However, the entire run may occasionally be referred to as a "show".
The term "telecast", meaning television broadcast and uncommon even in the US, is not used in British English. A television program(me) would be "broadcast", "aired" or "shown" in both the UK and US. Telecommunications. A long-distance call is a "trunk call" in British English, but is a "toll call" in American English, though neither term is well known among younger people. The distinction is a result of historical differences in the way local service was billed; the Bell System traditionally flat-rated local calls in all but a few markets, endowing local service by charging higher rates, or tolls, for intercity calls, allowing local calls to appear to be free. British Telecom (and the British 'Post Office Telecommunications' before it) charged for all calls, local and long distance, so labelling one class of call as "toll" would have been meaningless. Similarly, a toll-free number in America is a freephone number in the UK. The term "freefone" is a BT trademark. Rivers. In British English, the name of a river is usually placed after the word (River Thames) however there are a small number of exceptions such as Wick River. This matches the naming of lakes (e.g. Lake Superior, Loch Ness) and mountains (e.g. Mont Blanc, Mount St. Helens). In American English, the name is placed before the word (Hudson River).
Grammar. Subject–verb agreement. In American English (AmE), collective nouns are almost always singular in construction: "the committee was unable to agree". However, when a speaker wishes to emphasize that the individuals are acting separately, a plural pronoun may be employed with a singular or plural verb: "the team takes their seats", rather than "the team takes its seats". Such a sentence would most likely be recast as "the team members take their seats". Despite exceptions such as usage in "The New York Times", the names of sports teams are usually treated as plurals even if the form of the name is singular. In British English (BrE), collective nouns can take either singular ("formal agreement") or plural ("notional agreement") verb forms, according to whether the emphasis is on the body as a whole or on the individual members respectively; compare "a committee was appointed" with "the committee were unable to agree". The term "the Government" always takes a plural verb in British civil service convention, perhaps to emphasize the principle of cabinet collective responsibility. Compare also the following lines of Elvis Costello's song "Oliver's Army": "Oliver's Army is here to stay / Oliver's Army are on their way ". Some of these nouns, for example "staff", actually combine with plural verbs most of the time.
The difference occurs for all nouns of multitude, both general terms such as "team" and "company" and proper nouns (for example where a place name is used to refer to a sports team). For instance, Proper nouns that are plural in form take a plural verb in both AmE and BrE; for example, "The Beatles are a well-known band"; "The Diamondbacks are the champions", with one major exception: in American English, "the United States" is almost universally used with a singular verb. Although the construction "the United States are" was more common early in the history of the country, as the singular federal government exercised more authority and a singular national identity developed (especially following the American Civil War), it became standard to treat "the United States" as a singular noun. Style. Use of "that" and "which" in restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Generally, a non-restrictive relative clause (also called non-defining or supplementary) is one containing information that is supplementary, i.e. does not change the meaning of the rest of the sentence, while a restrictive relative clause (also called defining or integrated) contains information essential to the meaning of the sentence, effectively limiting the modified noun phrase to a subset that is defined by the relative clause.
An example of a restrictive clause is "The dog that bit the man was brown." An example of a non-restrictive clause is "The dog, which bit the man, was brown." In the former, "that bit the man" identifies which dog the statement is about. In the latter, "which bit the man" provides supplementary information about a known dog. A non-restrictive relative clause is typically set off by commas, whereas a restrictive relative clause is not, but this is not a rule that is universally observed. In speech, this is also reflected in the intonation. Writers commonly use "which" to introduce a non-restrictive clause, and "that" to introduce a restrictive clause. "That" is rarely used to introduce a non-restrictive relative clause in prose. "Which" and "that" are both commonly used to introduce a restrictive clause; a study in 1977 reported that about 75% of occurrences of "which" were in restrictive clauses. H. W. Fowler, in "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" of 1926, followed others in suggesting that it would be preferable to use "which" as the non-restrictive (what he calls "non-defining") pronoun and "that" as the restrictive (what he calls defining) pronoun, but he also stated that this rule was observed neither by most writers nor by the best writers. He implied that his suggested usage was more common in American English. Fowler notes that his recommended usage presents problems, in particular that "that" must be the first word of the clause, which means, for instance, that "which" cannot be replaced by "that" when it immediately follows a preposition (e.g. "the basic unit "from which" matter is constructed") – though this would not prevent a stranded preposition (e.g. "the basic unit "that" matter is constructed "from"").
Style guides by American prescriptivists, such as Bryan Garner, typically insist, for stylistic reasons, that "that" be used for restrictive relative clauses and "which" be used for non-restrictive clauses, referring to the use of "which" in restrictive clauses as a "mistake". According to the 2015 edition of "Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage", "In AmE "which" is 'not generally used in restrictive clauses, and that fact is then interpreted as the absolute rule that only "that" may introduce a restrictive clause', whereas in BrE 'either "that" or "which" may be used in restrictive clauses', but many British people 'believe that "that" is obligatory. Subjunctive. The subjunctive mood is more common in colloquial American English than in colloquial British English. Writing. Spelling. Before the early 18th century there was no standard for English spelling. Different standards became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. For the most part current BrE spellings follow those of Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language" (1755), while AmE spellings follow those of Noah Webster's "An American Dictionary of the English Language" (1828). In the United Kingdom, the influences of those who preferred the French spellings of certain words proved decisive. In many cases AmE spelling deviated from mainstream British spelling; on the other hand it has also often retained older forms. Many of the now characteristic AmE spellings were made popular, although often not created, by Noah Webster. Webster chose already-existing alternative spellings "on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology". Webster did attempt to introduce some reformed spellings, as did the Simplified Spelling Board in the early 20th century, but most were not adopted. Later spelling changes in the UK had little effect on present-day US spelling, and vice versa.
Punctuation. Full stops and periods in abbreviations. There have been some trends of transatlantic difference in use of periods in some abbreviations. These are discussed at "Abbreviation § Periods (full stops) and spaces". Unit symbols such as kg and Hz are never punctuated. Parentheses/brackets. In British English, "( )" marks are often referred to as brackets, whereas "[ ]" are called square brackets and "{ }" are called curly brackets. In formal British English and in American English "( )" marks are parentheses (singular: parenthesis), "[ ]" are called brackets or square brackets, and "{ }" can be called either curly brackets or braces. Despite the different names, these marks are used in the same way in both varieties. Quoting. British and American English differ in the preferred quotation mark style, including the placement of commas and periods. In American English, " and ' are called quotation marks, whereas in British English, " and ' are referred to as either inverted commas or speech marks. Additionally, in American English direct speech typically uses the double quote mark ( " ), whereas in British English it is common to use the inverted comma ( ' ).
Commas in headlines. American newspapers commonly use a comma as a shorthand for "and" in headlines. For example, "The Washington Post" had the headline "A TRUE CONSERVATIVE: For McCain, Bush Has Both Praise, Advice." Numerical expressions. There are many differences in the writing and speaking of English numerals, most of which are matters of style, with the notable exception of different definitions for billion. The two countries have different conventions for floor numbering. The UK uses a mixture of the metric system and Imperial units, where in the US, United States customary units are dominant in everyday life with a few fields using the metric system. Monetary amounts. Monetary amounts in the range of one to two major currency units are often spoken differently. In AmE one may say "a dollar fifty" or "a pound eighty", whereas in BrE these amounts would be expressed "one dollar fifty" and "one pound eighty". For amounts over a dollar an American will generally either drop denominations or give both dollars and cents, as in "two-twenty" or "two dollars and twenty cents" for $2.20. An American would not say "two dollars twenty". On the other hand, in BrE, "two-twenty" or "two pounds twenty" would be most common.
It is more common to hear a British-English speaker say "one thousand two hundred dollars" than "a thousand and two hundred dollars", although the latter construct is common in AmE. In British English, the "and" comes after the hundreds ("one thousand, two hundred and thirty dollars"). The term "twelve hundred dollars", popular in AmE, is frequently used in BrE but only for exact multiples of 100 up to 1,900. Speakers of BrE very rarely hear amounts over 1,900 expressed in hundreds, for example, "twenty-three hundred". In AmE it would not be unusual to refer to a high, uneven figure such as 2,307 as "twenty-three hundred and seven". In BrE, particularly in television or radio advertisements, integers can be pronounced individually in the expression of amounts. For example, "on sale for £399" might be expressed "on sale for three nine nine", though the full "three hundred and ninety-nine pounds" is at least as common. An American advertiser would almost always say "on sale for three ninety-nine", with context distinguishing $399 from $3.99. In British English the latter pronunciation implies a value in pounds and pence, so "three ninety-nine" would be understood as £3.99.
In spoken BrE the word "pound" is sometimes colloquially used for the plural as well. For example, "three pound forty" and "twenty pound a week" are both heard in British English. Some other currencies do not change in the plural; yen and rand being examples. This is in addition to normal adjectival use, as in "a twenty-pound-a-week pay-rise" (US "raise"). The euro most often takes a regular plural "-s" in practice despite the EU dictum that it should remain invariable in formal contexts; the invariable usage is more common in Ireland, where it is the official currency. In BrE the use of "p" instead of "pence" is common in spoken usage. Each of the following has equal legitimacy: "3 pounds 12 p"; "3 pounds and 12 p"; "3 pounds 12 pence"; "3 pounds and 12 pence"; as well as just "8 p" or "8 pence". In everyday usage the amount is simply read as figures (£3.50 = three pounds fifty) as in AmE. AmE uses words such as "nickel", "dime", and "quarter" for small coins. In BrE the usual usage is "a 10-pence piece" or "a 10p piece" or simply "a 10p", for any coin below £1, "pound coin" and "two-pound coin". BrE did have specific words for a number of coins before decimalisation. Formal coin names such as "half crown" (2/6) and "florin" (2/-), as well as slang or familiar names such as "bob" (1/-) and "tanner" (6d) for pre-decimalisation coins are still familiar to older BrE speakers but they are not used for modern coins. In older terms like "two-bob bit" (2/-) and "thrupenny bit" (3d), the word "bit" had common usage before decimalisation similar to that of "piece" today.
In order to make explicit the amount in words on a check (BrE "cheque"), Americans write "three and " (using this solidus construction or with a horizontal division line): they do not need to write the word "dollars" as it is usually already printed on the check. On a cheque UK residents would write "three pounds and 24 pence", "three pounds ‒ 24", or "three pounds ‒ 24p" since the currency unit is not preprinted. To make unauthorised amendment difficult, it is useful to have an expression terminator even when a whole number of dollars/pounds is in use: thus, Americans would write "three and " or "three and " on a three-dollar check (so that it cannot easily be changed to, for example, "three million"), and UK residents would write "three pounds only". Dates. Dates are usually written differently in the short (numerical) form. Christmas Day 2000, for example, is 25/12/00 or 25.12.00 in the UK and 12/25/00 in the US, although the formats 25/12/2000, 25.12.2000, and 12/25/2000 are now more common then they were before Y2K. Occasionally other formats are encountered, such as the ISO 8601 2000-12-25, popular among programmers, scientists and others seeking to avoid ambiguity, and to make alphanumerical order coincide with chronological order. The difference in short-form date order can lead to misunderstanding, especially when using software or equipment that uses the foreign format. For example, 06/04/05 could mean either June 4, 2005 (if read as US format), 6 April 2005 (if seen as in UK format) or even 2006 April 5 if taken to be an older ISO 8601-style format where 2-digit years were allowed.
When using the name of the month rather than the number to write a date in the UK, the recent standard style is for the day to precede the month, e. g., 21 April. Month preceding date is almost invariably the style in the US, and was common in the UK until the late twentieth century. British usage normally changes the day from an integer to an ordinal, i.e., 21st instead of 21. In speech, "of" and "the" are used in the UK, as in "the 21st of April". In written language, the words "the" and "of" may be and are usually dropped, i.e., 21 April. The US would say this as "April 21st", and this form is still common in the UK. One of the few exceptions in American English is saying "the Fourth of July" as a shorthand for the United States Independence Day. In the US military the British forms are used, but the day is read cardinally, while among some speakers of New England and Southern American English varieties and who come from those regions but live elsewhere, those forms are common, even in formal contexts.
Time. The 24-hour clock ("18:00", "18.00" or "1800") is considered normal in the UK and Europe in many applications including air, rail and bus timetables; it is largely unused in the US outside military, police, aviation and medical applications. As a result, many Americans refer to the 24-hour clock as "military time". Some British English style guides recommend the full stop (.) when telling time, compared to American English which uses colons (:) (i.e., 11:15 PM/pm/p.m. or 23:15 for AmE and 11.15 pm or 23.15 for BrE). Usually in the military (and sometimes in the police, aviation and medical) applications on both sides of the Atlantic "0800" and "1800" are read as ("oh/zero") "eight hundred" and "eighteen hundred" hours respectively. Even in the UK, "hundred" follows "twenty", "twenty-one", "twenty-two" and "twenty-three" when reading "2000", "2100", "2200" and "2300" according to those applications.
Sports percentages. In sports statistics, certain percentages such as those for winning or win–loss records and saves in field or ice hockey and association football are almost always expressed as a decimal proportion to three places in AmE and are usually read aloud as if they are whole numbers, e.g. (0).500 or five hundred, hence the phrase "games/matches over five hundred", whereas in BrE they are also expressed but as true percentages instead, after multiplying the decimal by 100%, that is, 50% or "fifty per cent" and "games/matches over 50%" or "...50 per cent". However, "games/matches over 50%" or "...50 percent" is also found in AmE, albeit sporadically, e.g., hitting percentages in volleyball. The American practice of expressing so-called percentages in sports statistics as decimals originated with baseball's batting averages, developed by English-born statistician and historian Henry Chadwick.
Atomic semantics Atomic semantics is a type of guarantee provided by a data register shared by several processors in a parallel machine or in a network of computers working together. Atomic semantics are very strong. An atomic register provides strong guarantees even when there is concurrency and failures. A read/write register R stores a value and is accessed by two basic operations: read and write(v). A read returns the value stored in R and write(v) changes the value stored in R to v. A register is called atomic if it satisfies the two following properties: 1) Each invocation op of a read or write operation: •Must appear as if it were executed at a single point τ(op) in time. •τ (op) works as follow: τb(op) ≤ τ (op) ≤ τe(op): where τb(op) and τe(op) indicate the time when the operation op begins and ends. •If op1 ≠ op2, then τ (op1)≠τ (op2) 2) Each read operation returns the value written by the last write operation before the read, in the sequence where all operations are ordered by their τ values. Atomic/Linearizable register:
Termination: when a node is correct, sooner or later each read and write operation will complete. Safety Property (Linearization points for read and write and failed operations): Read operation:It appears as if happened at all nodes at some times between the invocation and response time. Write operation: Similar to read operation, it appears as if happened at all nodes at some times between the invocation and response time. Failed operation(The atomic term comes from this notion):It appears as if it is completed at every single node or it never happened at any node. Example : We know that an atomic register is one that is linearizable to a sequential safe register. The following picture shows where we should put the linearization point for each operation: An atomic register could be defined for a variable with a single writer but multi- readers (SWMR), single-writer/single-reader (SWSR), or multi-writer/multi-reader (MWMR). Here is an example of a multi-reader multi-writer atomic register which is accessed by three processes (P1, P2, P3). Note that R. read() → v means that the corresponding read operation returns v, which is the value of the register. Therefore, the following execution of the register R could satisfies the definition of the atomic registers: R.write(1), R.read()→1, R.write(3), R.write(2), R.read()→2, R.read()→2.
Antarctic Circumpolar Current Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is an ocean current that flows clockwise (as seen from the South Pole) from west to east around Antarctica. An alternative name for the ACC is the West Wind Drift. The ACC is the dominant circulation feature of the Southern Ocean and has a mean transport estimated at 100–150 Sverdrups (Sv, million m3/s), or possibly even higher, making it the largest ocean current. The current is circumpolar due to the lack of any landmass connecting with Antarctica and this keeps warm ocean waters away from Antarctica, enabling that continent to maintain its huge ice sheet. Associated with the Circumpolar Current is the Antarctic Convergence, where the cold Antarctic waters meet the warmer waters of the subantarctic, creating a zone of upwelling nutrients. These nurture high levels of phytoplankton with associated copepods and krill, and resultant food chains supporting fish, whales, seals, penguins, albatrosses, and a wealth of other species. The ACC has been known to sailors for centuries; it greatly speeds up any travel from west to east, but makes sailing extremely difficult from east to west, although this is mostly due to the prevailing westerly winds. Jack London's story "Make Westing" and the circumstances preceding the mutiny on the "Bounty" poignantly illustrate the difficulty it caused for mariners seeking to round Cape Horn westbound on the clipper ship route from New York to California. The eastbound clipper route, which is the fastest sailing route around the world, follows the ACC around three continental capes – Cape Agulhas (Africa), South East Cape (Australia), and Cape Horn (South America).
The current creates the Ross and Weddell Gyres. Structure. The ACC connects the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, and serves as a principal pathway of exchange among them. The current is strongly constrained by landform and bathymetric features. To trace it starting arbitrarily at South America, it flows through the Drake Passage between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula and then is split by the Scotia Arc to the east, with a shallow warm branch flowing to the north in the Falkland Current and a deeper branch passing through the Arc more to the east before also turning to the north. Passing through the Indian Ocean, the current first retroflects the Agulhas Current to form the Agulhas Return Current before it is split by the Kerguelen Plateau, and then moving northward again. Deflection is also seen as it passes over the mid-ocean ridge in the Southeast Pacific. Fronts. The current is accompanied by three fronts: the Subantarctic front (SAF), the Polar front (PF), and the Southern ACC front (SACC). Furthermore, the waters of the Southern Ocean are separated from the warmer and saltier subtropical waters by the subtropical front (STF).
The northern boundary of the ACC is defined by the northern edge of the SAF, this being the most northerly water to pass through Drake Passage and therefore be circumpolar. Much of the ACC transport is carried in this front, which is defined as the latitude at which a subsurface salinity minimum or a thick layer of unstratified Subantarctic mode water first appears, allowed by temperature dominating density stratification. Still further south lies the PF, which is marked by a transition to very cold, relatively fresh, Antarctic Surface Water at the surface. Here a temperature minimum is allowed by salinity dominating density stratification, due to the lower temperatures. Farther south still is the SACC, which is determined as the southernmost extent of Circumpolar deep water (temperature of about 2 °C at 400 m). This water mass flows along the shelfbreak of the western Antarctic Peninsula and thus marks the most southerly water flowing through Drake Passage and therefore circumpolar. The bulk of the transport is carried in the middle two fronts.
The total transport of the ACC at Drake Passage is estimated to be around 135 Sv, or about 135 times the transport of all the world's rivers combined. There is a relatively small addition of flow in the Indian Ocean, with the transport south of Tasmania reaching around 147 Sv, at which point the current is probably the largest on the planet. Dynamics. The circumpolar current is driven by the strong westerly winds in the latitudes of the Southern Ocean. In latitudes where there are continents, winds blowing on light surface water can simply pile up light water against these continents. But in the Southern Ocean, the momentum imparted to the surface waters cannot be offset in this way. There are different theories on how the Circumpolar Current balances the momentum imparted by the winds. The increasing eastward momentum imparted by the winds causes water parcels to drift outward from the axis of the Earth's rotation (in other words, northward) as a result of the Coriolis force. This northward Ekman transport is balanced by a southward, pressure-driven flow below the depths of the major ridge systems. Some theories connect these flows directly, implying that there is significant upwelling of dense deep waters within the Southern Ocean, transformation of these waters into light surface waters, and a transformation of waters in the opposite direction to the north. Such theories link the magnitude of the Circumpolar Current with the global thermohaline circulation, particularly the properties of the North Atlantic.
Alternatively, ocean eddies, the oceanic equivalent of atmospheric storms, or the large-scale meanders of the Circumpolar Current may directly transport momentum downward in the water column. This is because such flows can produce a net southward flow in the troughs and a net northward flow over the ridges without requiring any transformation of density. In practice both the thermohaline and the eddy/meander mechanisms are likely to be important. The current flows at a rate of about over the Macquarie Ridge south of New Zealand. The ACC varies with time. Evidence of this is the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave, a periodic oscillation that affects the climate of much of the southern hemisphere. There is also the Antarctic oscillation, which involves changes in the location and strength of Antarctic winds. Trends in the Antarctic Oscillation have been hypothesized to account for an increase in the transport of the Circumpolar Current over the past two decades. Formation.
Phytoplankton. Antarctic sea ice cycles seasonally, in February–March the amount of sea ice is lowest, and in August–September the sea ice is at its greatest extent. Ice levels have been monitored by satellite since 1973. Upwelling of deep water under the sea ice brings substantial amounts of nutrients. As the ice melts, the melt water provides stability and the critical depth is well below the mixing depth, which allows for a positive net primary production. As the sea ice recedes epontic algae dominate the first phase of the bloom, and a strong bloom dominate by diatoms follows the ice melt south. Another phytoplankton bloom occurs more to the north near the Antarctic Convergence, here nutrients are present from thermohaline circulation. Phytoplankton blooms are dominated by diatoms and grazed by copepods in the open ocean, and by krill closer to the continent. Diatom production continues through the summer, and populations of krill are sustained, bringing large numbers of cetaceans, cephalopods, seals, birds, and fish to the area.
Phytoplankton blooms are believed to be limited by irradiance in the austral (southern hemisphere) spring, and by biologically available iron in the summer. Much of the biology in the area occurs along the major fronts of the current, the Subtropical, Subantarctic, and the Antarctic Polar fronts, these are areas associated with well defined temperature changes. Size and distribution of phytoplankton are also related to fronts. Microphytoplankton (>20 μm) are found at fronts and at sea ice boundaries, while nanophytoplankton (<20 μm) are found between fronts. Studies of phytoplankton stocks in the southern sea have shown that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is dominated by diatoms, while the Weddell Sea has abundant coccolithophorids and silicoflagellates. Surveys of the SW Indian Ocean have shown phytoplankton group variation based on their location relative to the Polar Front, with diatoms dominating South of the front, and dinoflagellates and flagellates in higher populations North of the front. Some research has been conducted on Antarctic phytoplankton as a carbon sink. Areas of open water left from ice melt are good areas for phytoplankton blooms. The phytoplankton takes carbon from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. As the blooms die and sink, the carbon can be stored in sediments for thousands of years. This natural carbon sink is estimated to remove 3.5 million tonnes from the ocean each year. 3.5 million tonnes of carbon taken from the ocean and atmosphere is equivalent to 12.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Studies. An expedition in May 2008 by 19 scientists studied the geology and biology of eight Macquarie Ridge sea mounts, as well as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to investigate the effects of climate change of the Southern Ocean. The circumpolar current merges the waters of the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans and carries up to 150 times the volume of water flowing in all of the world's rivers. The study found that any damage on the cold-water corals nourished by the current will have a long-lasting effect. After studying the circumpolar current it is clear that it strongly influences regional and global climate as well as underwater biodiversity. The subject has been characterized recently as "the spectral peak of the global extra-tropical circulation at ≈ 10^4 kilometers". The current helps preserve wooden shipwrecks by preventing wood-boring "ship worms" from reaching targets such as Ernest Shackleton's ship, the "Endurance". The "State of the Cryosphere" report found, that the Antarctic Circumpolar Current became weaker. By 2050 it expected to lose 20% of its strength with "widespread impacts on ocean circulation and climate." The Weddell Sea Bottom Water has lost 30% of its volume in the latest 32 years, and the Antarctic Bottom Water is expected to shrink. This will impact ocean circulation, nutrients, heat content and carbon sequestration. UNESCO mentions that the report in the first time "notes a growing scientific consensus that melting Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, among other factors, may be slowing important ocean currents at both poles, with potentially dire consequences for a much colder northern Europe and greater sea-level rise along the U.S. East Coast." The findings were bolstered by a 2025 study published in Environmental Research Letters.
Arbor Day Arbor Day (or Arbour Day in some countries) is a secular day of observance in which individuals and groups are encouraged to plant trees. Today, many countries observe such a holiday. Though usually observed in the spring, the date varies, depending on climate and suitable planting season. Origins and history. First Arbor Day. The Spanish village of Mondoñedo held the first documented arbor plantation festival in the world organized by its mayor in 1594. The place remains as Alameda de los Remedios and it is still planted with lime and horse-chestnut trees. A humble granite marker and a bronze plate recall the event. Additionally, the small Spanish village of Villanueva de la Sierra held the first modern Arbor Day, an initiative launched in 1805 by the local priest with the enthusiastic support of the entire population. First American Arbor Day. The first American Arbor Day was originated by J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City, Nebraska, at an annual meeting of the Nebraska State board of agriculture held in Lincoln. On April 10, 1872, an estimated one million trees were planted in Nebraska.
In 1883, the American Forestry Association made Birdsey Northrop of Connecticut the chairman of the committee to campaign for Arbor Day nationwide; Northrop further globalized the idea when he visited Japan in 1895 and delivered his Arbor Day and Village Improvement message. He also brought his enthusiasm for Arbor Day to Australia, Canada, and other countries in Europe. McCreight and Theodore Roosevelt. Beginning in 1906, Pennsylvania conservationist Major Israel McCreight of DuBois, Pennsylvania, argued that President Theodore Roosevelt's conservation speeches were limited to businessmen in the lumber industry and recommended a campaign of youth education and a national policy on conservation education. McCreight urged Roosevelt to make a public statement to school children about trees and the destruction of American forests. Conservationist Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the United States Forest Service, embraced McCreight's recommendations and asked the President to speak to the public school children of the United States about conservation. On April 15, 1907, Roosevelt issued an "Arbor Day Proclamation to the School Children of the United States" about the importance of trees and that forestry deserves to be taught in U.S. schools. Pinchot wrote McCreight, "we shall all be indebted to you for having made the suggestion."
Around the world. Australia. Arbor Day has been observed in Australia since the first event took place in Adelaide, South Australia on the 20th June 1889. National Schools Tree Day is held on the last Friday of July for schools and National Tree Day the last Sunday in July throughout Australia. Many states have Arbour Day, although Victoria has an Arbour Week, which was suggested by Premier Rupert (Dick) Hamer in the 1980s. Belgium. International Day of Treeplanting is celebrated in Flanders on or around 21 March as a theme-day/educational-day/observance, not as a public holiday. Tree planting is sometimes combined with awareness campaigns of the fight against cancer: "Kom Op Tegen Kanker". Brazil. The Arbor Day (Dia da Árvore) is celebrated on September 21. It is not a national holiday. However, schools nationwide celebrate this day with environment-related activities, namely tree planting. British Virgin Islands. Arbour Day is celebrated on November 22. It is sponsored by the National Parks Trust of the Virgin Islands. Activities include an annual national Arbour Day Poetry Competition and tree planting ceremonies throughout the territory.
Cambodia. Cambodia celebrates Arbor Day on July 9 with a tree planting ceremony attended by the king. Canada. The day was founded by Sir George William Ross, later the premier of Ontario, when he was minister of education in Ontario (1883–1899). According to the Ontario Teachers' Manuals "History of Education" (1915), Ross established both Arbour Day and Empire Day—"the former to give the school children an interest in making and keeping the school grounds attractive, and the latter to inspire the children with a spirit of patriotism" (p. 222). This predates the claimed founding of the day by Don Clark of Schomberg, Ontario for his wife Margret Clark in 1906. In Canada, National Forest Week is the last full week of September, and National Tree Day (Maple Leaf Day) falls on the Wednesday of that week. Ontario celebrates Arbour Week from the last Friday in April to the first Sunday in May. Prince Edward Island celebrates Arbour Day on the third Friday in May during Arbour Week. Arbour Day is the longest running civic greening project in Calgary and is celebrated on the first Thursday in May. On this day, each grade 1 student in Calgary's schools receives a tree seedling to be taken home to be planted on private property.
Central African Republic. National Tree Planting Day is on July 22. Chile. "Dia del Arbol" was celebrated on June 28, 2022, as defined by Chile's Environment Ministry Greater China. Republic of China (Taiwan). Arbor Day (植樹節) was founded by the forester Ling Daoyang in 1915 and has been a traditional holiday in the Republic of China since 1916. The Beiyang government's Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce first commemorated Arbor Day in 1915 at the suggestion of forester Ling Daoyang. In 1916, the government announced that all provinces of the Republic of China would celebrate the on the same day as the Qingming Festival, April 5, despite the differences in climate across China, which is on the first day of the fifth solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar. From 1929, by decree of the Nationalist government, Arbor Day was , to commemorate the death of Sun Yat-sen, who had been a major advocate of afforestation in his life. Following the retreat of the government of the Republic of China to Taiwan in 1949, the celebration of Arbor Day on March 12 was retained.
People's Republic of China. In People's Republic of China, during the fourth session of the Fifth National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China in 1979 adopted the Resolution on the Unfolding of a Nationwide Voluntary Tree-planting Campaign. This resolution established the Arbor Day (植树节), also March 12, and stipulated that every able-bodied citizen between the ages of 11 and 60 should plant three to five trees per year or do the equivalent amount of work in seedling, cultivation, tree tending, or other services. Supporting documentation instructs all units to report population statistics to the local afforestation committees for workload allocation. Many couples choose to marry the day before the annual celebration, and they plant the tree to mark beginning of their life together and the new life of the tree. Republic of Congo. National Tree Planting Day is on November 6. Costa Rica. "Día del Árbol" is on June 15. Cuba. "Dia del Árbol" (Day of the Tree) was first observed on October 10, 1904, and today is officially observed on June 21 of each year.
Czech Republic. is celebrated on October 20. Egypt. Arbor Day is on January 15. Germany. Arbor Day ("Tag des Baumes") is on April 25. Its first celebration was in 1952. India. Van Mahotsav is an annual pan-Indian tree planting festival, occupying a week in the month of July. During this event millions of trees are planted. It was initiated in 1950 by K. M. Munshi, the then Union Minister for Agriculture and Food, to create an enthusiasm in the mind of the populace for the conservation of forests and planting of trees. The name Van Mahotsava (the festival of trees) originated in July 1947 after a successful tree-planting drive was undertaken in Delhi, in which national leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr Rajendra Prasad and Abul Kalam Azad participated. Paryawaran Sachetak Samiti, a leading environmental organization conducts mass events and activities on this special day celebration each year. The week was simultaneously celebrated in a number of states in the country. Iran. In Iran, it is known as "National Tree Planting Day". By the Solar Hijri calendar, it is on the fifteenth day of the month Esfand, which usually corresponds with March 5. This day is the first day of the "Natural Recyclable Resources Week" (March 5 to 12).
This is the time when the saplings of the all kinds in terms of different climates of different parts of Iran are shared among the people. They are also taught how to plant trees. Israel. The Jewish holiday Tu Bishvat, the new year for trees, is on the 15th day of the month of Shvat, which usually falls in January or February. Originally based on the date used to calculate the age of fruit trees for tithing as mandated in Leviticus 19:23–25, the holiday now is most often observed by planting trees or raising money to plant trees, and by eating fruit, specifically grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates. Tu Bishvat is a semi-official holiday in Israel; schools are open but Hebrew-speaking schools often go on tree-planting excursions. Japan. Japan celebrates a similarly themed Greenery Day, held on May 4. Kenya. Historically, Kenya celebrated National Tree Planting Day on April 21. Often people plant palm trees and coconut trees along the Indian Ocean that borders the east coast of Kenya. They plant trees to remember Prof. Wangari Maathai, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for planting of trees and caring for them all over Kenya.
With the Kenyan government launching a campaign to plant 15 billion trees by 2032, they launched National Tree Growing Day with very aggressive targets for the number of trees to be planted. The first national public holiday was November 13, 2023. The second was May 10, 2024, with a goal to plant one billion trees in a single day. Korea. North Korea marks "Tree Planting Day" on March 2, when people across the country plant trees. This day is considered to combine traditional Asian cultural values with the country's dominant Communist ideology. In South Korea, April 5, Singmogil or Sikmogil (식목일), the Arbor Day, was a public holiday until 2005. Even though Singmogil is no longer an official holiday, the day is still celebrated, with the South Korean public continuing to take part in tree-planting activities. Lesotho. National Tree Planting Day is usually on March 21 depending on the lunar cycle. Luxembourg. National Tree Planting Day is on the second Saturday in November. Malawi. National Tree Planting Day is on the 2nd Monday of December.
Mexico. The "Día del Árbol" was established in Mexico in 1959 with President Adolfo López Mateos issuing a decree that it should be observed on the 2nd Thursday of July. Mongolia. National Tree Planting Day is on the 2nd Saturday of May and October. The first National Tree Planting Day was celebrated May 8, 2010. Namibia. Namibia's first Arbor Day was celebrated on October 8, 2004. It takes place annually on the second Friday of October. Netherlands. Since conference and of the Food and Agriculture Organization's publication "World Festival of Trees", and a resolution of the United Nations in 1954: "The Conference, recognising the need of arousing mass consciousness of the aesthetic, physical and economic value of trees, recommends a World Festival of Trees to be celebrated annually in each member country on a date suited to local conditions"; it has been adopted by the Netherlands. In 1957, the National Committee Day of Planting Trees/Foundation of National Festival of Trees ("Nationale Boomplantdag"/"Nationale Boomfeestdag") was created.
On the third Wednesday in March each year (near the spring equinox), three quarters of Dutch schoolchildren aged 10/11 and Dutch celebrities plant trees. Stichting Nationale Boomfeestdag organizes all the activities in the Netherlands for this day. Some municipalities however plant the trees around 21 September because of the planting season. In 2007, the 50th anniversary was celebrated with special golden jubilee activities. New Zealand. New Zealand's first Arbor Day planting was on 3 July 1890 at Greytown, in the Wairarapa. The first official celebration was scheduled to take place in Wellington in August 1892, with the planting of pōhutukawa and Norfolk pines along Thorndon Esplanade. Prominent New Zealand botanist Dr Leonard Cockayne worked extensively on native plants throughout New Zealand and wrote many notable botanical texts. As early as the 1920s he held a vision for school students of New Zealand to be involved in planting native trees and plants in their school grounds. This vision bore fruit and schools in New Zealand have long planted native trees on Arbor Day.
Since 1977, New Zealand has celebrated Arbor Day on 5 June, which is also World Environment Day. Prior to then, Arbor Day was celebrated on 4 August, which is rather late in the year for tree planting in New Zealand, hence the date change. Many of the Department of Conservation's Arbor Day activities focus on ecological restoration projects using native plants to restore habitats that have been damaged or destroyed by humans or invasive pests and weeds. There are great restoration projects underway around New Zealand and many organisations including community groups, landowners, conservation organisations, iwi, volunteers, schools, local businesses, nurseries and councils are involved in them. These projects are part of a vision to protect and restore the indigenous biodiversity. Niger. Since 1975, Niger has celebrated Arbor Day as part of its Independence Day: 3 August. On this day, aiding the fight against desertification, each Nigerien plants a tree. North Macedonia. Having in mind the bad condition of the forest fund, and in particular the catastrophic wildfires which occurred in the summer of 2007, a citizens' initiative for afforestation was started in North Macedonia. The campaign by the name 'Tree Day-Plant Your Future' was first organized on 12 March 2008, when an official non-working day was declared and more than 150,000 Macedonians planted 2 million trees in one day (symbolically, one for each citizen). Six million more were planted in November the same year, and another 12,5 million trees in 2009. This has been established as a tradition and takes place every year.
Pakistan. National tree plantation day of Pakistan (قومی شجر کاری دن) is celebrated on 18 August. Philippines. Since 1947, Arbor Day in the Philippines has been institutionalized to be observed throughout the nation by planting trees and ornamental plants and other forms of relevant activities. Its practice was instituted through Proclamation No. 30. It was subsequently revised by Proclamation No. 41, issued in the same year. In 1955, the commemoration was extended from a day to a week and moved to the last full week of July. Over two decades later, its commemoration was moved to the second week of June. In 2003, the commemorations were reduced from a week to a day and was moved to June 25 per Proclamation No. 396. The same proclamation directed "the active participation of all government agencies, including government-owned and controlled corporations, private sector, schools, civil society groups and the citizenry in tree planting activity". It was subsequently revised by Proclamation 643 in the succeeding year.
In 2012, Republic Act 10176 was passed, which revived tree planting events "as [a] yearly event for local government units" and mandated the planting of at least one tree per year for able-bodied Filipino citizens aged 12 years old and above. Since 2012, many local arbor day celebrations have been commemorated, as in the cases of Natividad and Tayug in Pangasinan and Santa Rita in Pampanga. Poland. In Poland, Arbor Day has been celebrated since 2002. Each October 10, many Polish people plant trees as well as participate in events organized by ecological foundations. Moreover, Polish Forest Inspectorates and schools give special lectures and lead ecological awareness campaigns. Portugal. Arbor Day is celebrated on March 21. It is not a national holiday but instead schools nationwide celebrate this day with environment-related activities, namely tree planting. Russia. All-Russian day of forest plantation was celebrated for the first time on 14 May 2011. Now it is held in April–May (it depends on the weather in different regions).
Samoa. Arbor Day in Samoa is celebrated on the first Friday in November. Saudi Arabia. Arbor Day in Saudi Arabia is celebrated on April 29. Singapore. In 1971 a 'Tree Planting Day' was established which in 1990 was replaced by 'Clean and Green Week'. South Africa. Arbor Day was celebrated from 1945 until 2000 in South Africa. After that, the national government extended it to National Arbor Week, which lasts annually from 1–7 September. Two trees, one common and one rare, are highlighted to increase public awareness of indigenous trees, while various "greening" activities are undertaken by schools, businesses and other organizations. For example, the social enterprise Greenpop, which focusses on sustainable urban greening, forest restoration and environmental awareness in Sub-Saharan Africa, leverages Arbor Day each year to call for tree planting action. During Arbor Month 2019, responding to recent studies that underscore the importance of tree restoration, they launched their new goal of planting 500,000 by 2025.
Spain. In 1896 Mariano Belmás Estrada promoted the first "Festival of Trees" in Madrid. In Spain there was an International Forest Day on 21 March, but a decree in 1915 also brought in an Arbor Day throughout Spain. Each municipality or collective decides the date for its Arbor Day, usually between February and May. In Villanueva de la Sierra (Extremadura), where the first Arbor Day in the world was held in 1805, it is celebrated, as on that occasion, on Tuesday Carnaval. It is a great day in the local festive calendar. As an example of commitment to nature, the small town of Pescueza, with only 180 inhabitants, organizes every spring a large plantation of holm oaks, which is called the "Festivalino", promoted by city council, several foundations, and citizen participation. Sri Lanka. National Tree Planting Day is on November 15. Tanzania. National Tree Planting Day is on April 1. Turkey. National Tree Planting Day is on November 11. Uganda. National Tree Planting Day is on March 24. United Kingdom. First mounted in 1975, National Tree Week is a celebration of the start of the winter tree planting season, usually at the end of November. Around a million trees are planted each year by schools, community organizations and local authorities.
On 6 February 2020, Myerscough College in Lancashire, England, supported by the Arbor Day Foundation, celebrated the UK's first Arbor Day. United States. Arbor Day was founded in 1872 by J. Sterling Morton in Nebraska City, Nebraska. By the 1920s, each state in the United States had passed public laws that stipulated a certain day to be Arbor Day or "Arbor and Bird Day" observance. National Arbor Day is celebrated every year on the last Friday in April; it is a civic holiday in Nebraska. Other states have selected their own dates for Arbor Day. The customary observance is to plant a tree. On the first Arbor Day, April 10, 1872, an estimated one million trees were planted. Venezuela. Venezuela recognizes "Día del Arbol" (Day of the Tree) on the last Sunday of May.
A. J. Ayer Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer ( ; 29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989) was an English philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books "Language, Truth, and Logic" (1936) and "The Problem of Knowledge" (1956). Ayer was educated at Eton College and the University of Oxford, after which he studied the philosophy of logical positivism at the University of Vienna. From 1933 to 1940 he lectured on philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford. During the Second World War Ayer was a Special Operations Executive and MI6 agent. Ayer was Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London from 1946 until 1959, after which he returned to Oxford to become Wykeham Professor of Logic at New College. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1951 to 1952 and knighted in 1970. He was known for his advocacy of humanism, and was the second president of the British Humanist Association (now known as Humanists UK). Ayer was president of the Homosexual Law Reform Society for a time; he remarked, "as a notorious heterosexual I could never be accused of feathering my own nest."
Life. Ayer was born in St John's Wood, in north west London, to Jules Louis Cyprien Ayer and Reine (née Citroen), wealthy parents from continental Europe. His mother was from the Dutch-Jewish family that founded the Citroën car company in France; his father was a Swiss Calvinist financier who worked for the Rothschild family, including for their bank and as secretary to Alfred Rothschild. Ayer was educated at Ascham St Vincent's School, a former boarding preparatory school for boys in the seaside town of Eastbourne in Sussex, where he started boarding at the relatively early age of seven for reasons to do with the First World War, and at Eton College, where he was a King's Scholar. At Eton Ayer first became known for his characteristic bravado and precocity. Though primarily interested in his intellectual pursuits, he was very keen on sports, particularly rugby, and reputedly played the Eton Wall Game very well. In the final examinations at Eton, Ayer came second in his year, and first in classics. In his final year, as a member of Eton's senior council, he unsuccessfully campaigned for the abolition of corporal punishment at the school. He won a classics scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford. He graduated with a BA with first-class honours.
After graduating from Oxford, Ayer spent a year in Vienna, returned to England and published his first book, "Language, Truth and Logic", in 1936. This first exposition in English of logical positivism as newly developed by the Vienna Circle, made Ayer at age 26 the "enfant terrible" of British philosophy. As a newly famous intellectual, he played a prominent role in the Oxford by-election campaign of 1938. Ayer campaigned first for the Labour candidate Patrick Gordon Walker, and then for the joint Labour-Liberal "Independent Progressive" candidate Sandie Lindsay, who ran on an anti-appeasement platform against the Conservative candidate, Quintin Hogg, who ran as the appeasement candidate. The by-election, held on 27 October 1938, was quite close, with Hogg winning narrowly. In the Second World War, Ayer served as an officer in the Welsh Guards, chiefly in intelligence (Special Operations Executive (SOE) and MI6). He was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Welsh Guards from the Officer Cadet Training Unit on 21 September 1940.
After the war, Ayer briefly returned to the University of Oxford where he became a fellow and Dean of Wadham College. He then taught philosophy at University College London from 1946 until 1959, during which time he started to appear on radio and television. He was an extrovert and social mixer who liked dancing and attending clubs in London and New York. He was also obsessed with sport: he had played rugby for Eton, and was a noted cricketer and a keen supporter of Tottenham Hotspur football team, where he was for many years a season ticket holder. For an academic, Ayer was an unusually well-connected figure in his time, with close links to 'high society' and the establishment. Presiding over Oxford high-tables, he is often described as charming, but could also be intimidating. Ayer was married four times to three women. His first marriage was from 1932 to 1941, to (Grace Isabel) Renée, with whom he had a sonallegedly the son of Ayer's friend and colleague Stuart Hampshireand a daughter. Renée subsequently married Hampshire. In 1960, Ayer married Alberta Constance (Dee) Wells, with whom he had one son. That marriage was dissolved in 1983, and the same year, Ayer married Vanessa Salmon, the former wife of politician Nigel Lawson. She died in 1985, and in 1989 Ayer remarried Wells, who survived him. He also had a daughter with Hollywood columnist Sheilah Graham Westbrook.
In 1950, Ayer attended the founding meeting of the Congress for Cultural Freedom in West Berlin, though he later said he went only because of the offer of a "free trip". He gave a speech on why John Stuart Mill's conceptions of liberty and freedom were still valid in the 20th century. Together with the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, Ayer fought against Arthur Koestler and Franz Borkenau, arguing that they were far too dogmatic and extreme in their anti-communism, in fact proposing illiberal measures in the defence of liberty. Adding to the tension was the location of the congress in West Berlin, together with the fact that the Korean War began on 25 June 1950, the fourth day of the congress, giving a feeling that the world was on the brink of war. From 1959 to his retirement in 1978, Ayer held the Wykeham Chair, Professor of Logic at Oxford. He was knighted in 1970. After his retirement, Ayer taught or lectured several times in the United States, including as a visiting professor at Bard College in 1987. At a party that same year held by fashion designer Fernando Sanchez, Ayer confronted Mike Tyson, who was forcing himself upon the then little-known model Naomi Campbell. When Ayer demanded that Tyson stop, Tyson reportedly asked, "Do you know who the fuck I am? I'm the heavyweight champion of the world", to which Ayer replied, "And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field. I suggest that we talk about this like rational men". Ayer and Tyson then began to talk, allowing Campbell to slip out. Gully Wells, Ayer’s stepdaughter via Dee Wells, records the same event with some slight variation of detail.
Ayer was also involved in politics, including anti-Vietnam War activism, supporting the Labour Party (and later the Social Democratic Party), chairing the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination in Sport, and serving as president of the Homosexual Law Reform Society. In 1988, a year before his death, Ayer wrote an article titled "What I saw when I was dead", describing an unusual near-death experience after his heart stopped for four minutes as he choked on smoked salmon. Of the experience, he first said that it "slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death ... will be the end of me, though I continue to hope that it will be." A few weeks later, he revised this, saying, "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief". Ayer died on 27 June 1989. From 1980 to 1989 he lived at 51 York Street, Marylebone, where a memorial plaque was unveiled on 19 November 1995. Philosophical ideas. In "Language, Truth and Logic" (1936), Ayer presents the verification principle as the only valid basis for philosophy. Unless logical or empirical verification is possible, statements like "God exists" or "charity is good" are not true or untrue but meaningless, and may thus be excluded or ignored. Religious language in particular is unverifiable and as such literally nonsense. He also criticises C. A. Mace's opinion that metaphysics is a form of intellectual poetry. The stance that a belief in God denotes no verifiable hypothesis is sometimes referred to as igtheism (for example, by Paul Kurtz). In later years, Ayer reiterated that he did not believe in God and began to call himself an atheist. He followed in the footsteps of Bertrand Russell by debating religion with the Jesuit scholar Frederick Copleston.
Ayer's version of emotivism divides "the ordinary system of ethics" into four classes: He focuses on propositions of the first classmoral judgementssaying that those of the second class belong to science, those of the third are mere commands, and those of the fourth (which are considered normative ethics as opposed to meta-ethics) are too concrete for ethical philosophy. Ayer argues that moral judgements cannot be translated into non-ethical, empirical terms and thus cannot be verified; in this he agrees with ethical intuitionists. But he differs from intuitionists by discarding appeals to intuition of non-empirical moral truths as "worthless" since the intuition of one person often contradicts that of another. Instead, Ayer concludes that ethical concepts are "mere pseudo-concepts": Between 1945 and 1947, together with Russell and George Orwell, Ayer contributed a series of articles to "Polemic", a short-lived British "Magazine of Philosophy, Psychology, and Aesthetics" edited by the ex-Communist Humphrey Slater.
Ayer was closely associated with the British humanist movement. He was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association from 1947 until his death. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1963. In 1965, he became the first president of the Agnostics' Adoption Society and in the same year succeeded Julian Huxley as president of the British Humanist Association, a post he held until 1970. In 1968 he edited "The Humanist Outlook", a collection of essays on the meaning of humanism. He was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto. Works. Ayer is best known for popularising the verification principle, in particular through his presentation of it in "Language, Truth, and Logic". The principle was at the time at the heart of the debates of the so-called Vienna Circle, which Ayer had visited as a young guest. Others, including the circle's leading light, Moritz Schlick, were already writing papers on the issue. Ayer's formulation was that a sentence can be meaningful only if it has verifiable empirical import; otherwise, it is either "analytical" if tautologous or "metaphysical" (i.e. meaningless, or "literally senseless"). He started to work on the book at the age of 23 and it was published when he was 26. Ayer's philosophical ideas were deeply influenced by those of the Vienna Circle and David Hume. His clear, vibrant and polemical exposition of them makes "Language, Truth and Logic" essential reading on the tenets of logical empiricism; the book is regarded as a classic of 20th-century analytic philosophy and is widely read in philosophy courses around the world. In it, Ayer also proposes that the distinction between a conscious man and an unconscious machine resolves itself into a distinction between "different types of perceptible behaviour", an argument that anticipates the Turing test published in 1950 to test a machine's capability to demonstrate intelligence.
Ayer wrote two books on the philosopher Bertrand Russell, "Russell and Moore: The Analytic Heritage" (1971) and "Russell" (1972). He also wrote an introductory book on the philosophy of David Hume and a short biography of Voltaire. Ayer was a strong critic of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. As a logical positivist, Ayer was in conflict with Heidegger's vast, overarching theories of existence. Ayer considered them completely unverifiable through empirical demonstration and logical analysis, and this sort of philosophy an unfortunate strain in modern thought. He considered Heidegger the worst example of such philosophy, which Ayer believed entirely useless. In "Philosophy in the Twentieth Century", Ayer accuses Heidegger of "surprising ignorance" or "unscrupulous distortion" and "what can fairly be described as charlatanism." In 1972–73, Ayer gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of St Andrews, later published as "The Central Questions of Philosophy". In the book's preface, he defends his selection to hold the lectureship on the basis that Lord Gifford wished to promote "natural theology, in the widest sense of that term", and that non-believers are allowed to give the lectures if they are "able reverent men, true thinkers, sincere lovers of and earnest inquirers after truth". He still believed in the viewpoint he shared with the logical positivists: that large parts of what was traditionally called philosophyincluding metaphysics, theology and aestheticswere not matters that could be judged true or false, and that it was thus meaningless to discuss them.
In "The Concept of a Person and Other Essays" (1963), Ayer heavily criticised Wittgenstein's private language argument. Ayer's sense-data theory in "Foundations of Empirical Knowledge" was famously criticised by fellow Oxonian J. L. Austin in "Sense and Sensibilia", a landmark 1950s work of ordinary language philosophy. Ayer responded in the essay "Has Austin Refuted the Sense-datum Theory?", which can be found in his "Metaphysics and Common Sense" (1969). Awards. Ayer was awarded a knighthood as Knight Bachelor in the London Gazette on 1 January 1970. Collections. Ayer's biographer, Ben Rogers, deposited 7 boxes of research material accumulated through the writing process at University College London in 2007. The material was donated in collaboration with Ayer's family.
André Weil André Weil (; ; 6 May 1906 – 6 August 1998) was a French mathematician, known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry. He was one of the most influential mathematicians of the twentieth century. His influence is due both to his original contributions to a remarkably broad spectrum of mathematical theories, and to the mark he left on mathematical practice and style, through some of his own works as well as through the Bourbaki group, of which he was one of the principal founders. Life. André Weil was born in Paris to agnostic Alsatian Jewish parents who fled the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–71. Simone Weil, who would later become a famous philosopher, was Weil's younger sister and only sibling. He studied in Paris, Rome and Göttingen and received his doctorate in 1928. While in Germany, Weil befriended Carl Ludwig Siegel. Starting in 1930, he spent two academic years at Aligarh Muslim University in India. Aside from mathematics, Weil held lifelong interests in classical Greek and Latin literature, Hinduism and Sanskrit literature: he had taught himself Sanskrit in 1920 at age 14. After teaching for one year at Aix-Marseille University, he taught for six years at University of Strasbourg. He married Éveline de Possel (née Éveline Gillet) in 1937.
Weil was in Finland when World War II broke out; he had been traveling in Scandinavia since April 1939. His wife Éveline returned to France without him. Weil was arrested in Finland at the outbreak of the Winter War on suspicion of spying; however, accounts of his life having been in danger were shown to be exaggerated. Weil returned to France via Sweden and the United Kingdom, and was detained at Le Havre in January 1940. He was charged with failure to report for duty, and was imprisoned in Le Havre and then Rouen. It was in the military prison in Bonne-Nouvelle, a district of Rouen, from February to May, that Weil completed the work that made his reputation. He was tried on 3 May 1940. Sentenced to five years, he requested to be attached to a military unit instead, and was given the chance to join a regiment in Cherbourg. After the fall of France in June 1940, he met up with his family in Marseille, where he arrived by sea. He then went to Clermont-Ferrand, where he managed to join his wife, Éveline, who had been living in German-occupied France.
In January 1941, Weil and his family sailed from Marseille to New York. He spent the remainder of the war in the United States, where he was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. For two years, he taught undergraduate mathematics at Lehigh University, where he was unappreciated, overworked and poorly paid, although he did not have to worry about being drafted, unlike his American students. He quit the job at Lehigh and moved to Brazil, where he taught at the Universidade de São Paulo from 1945 to 1947, working with Oscar Zariski. Weil and his wife had two daughters, Sylvie (born in 1942) and Nicolette (born in 1946). He then returned to the United States and taught at the University of Chicago from 1947 to 1958, before moving to the Institute for Advanced Study, where he would spend the remainder of his career. He was a Plenary Speaker at the ICM in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1954 in Amsterdam, and in 1978 in Helsinki. Weil was elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1966. In 1979, he shared the second Wolf Prize in Mathematics with Jean Leray.

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