silly season
1
6.5
- noun
- Literature
:
temporada de tonterías
- But this one really serves more to highlight what happens when politicos wind up with too much time on their hands during the silly season.
Examples
-
Everyone, the silly season is over.
Blog text (3) -
It's tricky business bringing all of this to light during the silly season.
Blog text (5) -
The silly season is over.
Blog text (11) -
I normally sort of like the political give and take, but this year's silly season is a little less silly.
Blog text (15) -
Now that the silly season is over, let's be really clear where events are headed.
Blog text (2) -
Where was all this latent wisdom during the silly season?
Blog text (17) -
There have been a couple of silly season news updates in the week since the Indian Grand Prix.
Blog text (31) -
Most of all, welcome to "silly season" in this country, the months before a national election where anything is true and nothing is true.
Academic text (1996) -
P.S. I'll be very happy next Wednesday because the political silly season will be over, and we can get back to what really matters: figuring out how to control the burden of government spending, how to implement much-needed entitlement reform, and how to fix the corrupt tax system.
Blog text (30) -
During the silly season, news outlets often focus on celebrity gossip instead of serious news.
How Trivial
- Literature
188
3.7
- Literature
1
6.5
6
5.5
- Literature
4
4.2
- Literature
68
1.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a period characterized by trivial or frivolous events' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'silly' (trivial/foolish) with 'season' (a period). This noun-noun compositional pattern is straightforward and cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words would likely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Silly season comes from newspapers in slow summer months when there were no big stories. Editors printed light, silly items like odd gossip or animal tales, so the season came to mean 'trivial' news.