Indian Summer

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, this is Mary from St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Hi, Mary.

Hello, Mary, what’s going on?

I have a problem here I’m hoping you can help me with.

I have a little disagreement with my significant other, who, by the way, is truly the smartest man I know.

Our problem is with the term Indian summer.

I thought Indian summer meant when in the fall, you know, it’s, you know, go through the summer and then it starts to cool off and then we have a spell and it probably freezes and then we have a warm spell.

And I thought the term Indian summer came from, oh, back in the old days when they, that that was at a time when Indians would have to do their last harvest before the winter.

Now, my significant other, who’s very smart, said that he thought it came from sort of the same take as the term Indian giver, which, of course, is not appropriate anymore.

But in that, you know, we thought we were getting warm weather and then, you know, like we have the fall, we think then it goes to a nice patch and then boom, then we’re in the bad part of winter.

Mm-Fake out.

Right. I see. I was wondering how that could be related, but I see now.

Yeah.

Well, you’re right that Indian giver is considered offensive now.

And I don’t think it has anything to do with Indian summer, really.

Although the truth is, Mary, there are so many theories about the term Indian summer.

It’s amazing. How many theories are there, Grant?

A million?

A million?

Yeah, just so many.

And the one that keeps getting floated around that seems the most logical is probably something about the colonists coming from England where they used a different term for that period of time, either St. Martin’s summer.

Sometimes they called it goose summer because that was the time of year when geese were eaten at feasts, that kind of thing.

But the one that makes the most sense is simply that they had different names there and then came to this country and associated that period of time with one of the most salient characteristics of the New World, that is the presence of Indians there.

But the truth is that we just don’t know.

Okay.

Well, I like that explanation.

Mary, I will give you one recommendation, which is a book called Beneath the Second Sun, S-U-N.

It’s by Adam Sweeting, who I think is a professor of humanities at Boston University.

And it’s just a whole book about Indian summer.

And it’s a beautiful meditation on that period of the year.

And it’s got all kinds of references to literature and history and science.

And it’s just a gorgeous little book that makes you really appreciate that beautiful, beautiful time of year.

Oh, that sounds lovely because it is a beautiful time.

Yeah, it is. It is.

And I’m sorry that it’s gotten associated with the term, with the offensive term Indian giver.

You know, I’m almost hesitant to say it, although I don’t, I’m not sure that there’s a connection there.

Well, I’ve never heard anyone else make that connection.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don’t believe that there’s a connection there to Indian summer, the taking back of something once given.

I don’t believe it.

Yeah, I don’t either.

This is the first that I’ve ever heard of it.

It’s possible he was pulling my leg.

Oh well.

A significant other?

Only to get them even, I suppose.

But he might have been.

Well, you did say he was the smartest guy in the world besides Grant.

That’s true.

Well, Mary, thanks for an interesting question.

Well, thank you so much for your help.

All right.

All right.

Thank you.

Take care.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.