Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

I also tried a google search and came up with two interesting finds:

On the site http://www.applegatereptiles.com/articles/bookbreeding.htm,  
the author discusses the breeding of milk snakes and asides:

<Begin quotation>
However, the word brumation elicits associations that do not really fit
from a herpetocultural point of view.  Indeed, brumation has not been
widely adopted by the herpetocultural community and will probably not be.  
It is a word that looks and sounds wrong.  The closest word to it in most
people's memory is ruminate (not "brume", meaning winter from which it was
derived).  Brumate and brumation in terms of popular use simply do not
work.  It would make much more sense to expand the definitions of
hibernation and hibernate to include the following:

 hibernation: 1. a popular term used by herpetoculturists in reference to
 the winter cooling of amphibians and reptiles in captivity usually  
 associated with reduced activity and fasting. 2. the process of being  
 subject to reduced winter temperatures and the associated reduced  
 activity and fasting (used with amphibians and reptiles in the reference
 of herpetoculture).

 to hibernate: 1. a popular term used by herpetoculturists in reference  
 to establishing environmental conditions and exposing amphibians and  
 reptiles to environmental conditions leading to hibernation. 2. a  
 herpetocultural term meaning to undergo the process of hibernation with  
 reference to amphibians and reptiles in captivity.
<End quotation>

The second find comes from the FAQ for rec.pets.herp,
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/pets/herp-faq/part1/. It says:

<Begin quotation>
Brumation: A term intended to describe "hibernation" in reptiles and
other cold-blooded animals.  The point of having two terms is simply that
hibernation is a complex process involving some regulation of body
temperature, whereas brumation is a simpler general slowing of all
metabolic processes.  The word is a fairly recent coinage (1965, in a
paper by Mayhew), and it is reported to be falling out of usage among
academic herpetologists.  It's probably fine to just say "hibernation".
<End quotation>

"Brumation" may not have a very long life in the field of herpetology;
however, nothing dies once it reaches the Internet. Its immortality is now
certain.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=brumal

The above source says the etymology is traceable to Latin words for
brevity, since winter days are short. There's the famous French
Revolutionary calendar which has the "Brumaire" as one of the months.

Hibernation is of course also linked to words for winter, so I suppose
it would make sense to use another winter term for something that
appears similar. Oddly, according to etymonline, "hibernate" is only
attested to from 1802.

TOF

First noted in Birmingham?

It appears in the v. good "Animals in Winter" by Bernd Heinrich. He
says: "Coined in the 1970s, this term refers to winter sluggishness or
torpor of presumably cold-blooded amphibians and reptiles."

I thought it would be about what people from Birmingham do to stuff.

Stupot