GC: n
S: NatGeo – https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/south-pole/ (last access: 20 July 2024); NOAA – https://gml.noaa.gov/grad/antuv/SouthPole.jsp (last access: 20 July 2024).
N: 1. – south (adv): Old English suþ “southward, to or toward the south, southern, in the south,” from Proto-Germanic *sunthaz, perhaps literally “sun-side” (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian suth “southward, in the south,” Middle Dutch suut, Dutch zuid, German Süden), and related to base of *sunnon “sun” (from PIE root *sawel- “the sun”). Old French sur, sud (Modern French sud), Spanish sur, sud are loan-words from Germanic, perhaps from Old Norse suðr.
As an adjective, “being or situated in the south,” from c. 1300. As a noun, “that one of the four cardinal points directly opposite to north,” also “southern region of a country,” both late 13c.
The Southern states of the U.S. have been collectively called The South since 1779 (in early use this often referred only to Georgia and South Carolina). South country (late 14c.) in Britain is below the Tweed, in England below the Wash, in Scotland below the Forth. The South Sea meant “the Mediterranean” (late 14c.) and “the English Channel” (early 15c.) before it came to mean (in plural) “the South Pacific Ocean” (1520s) and it was frequent for “the Pacific Ocean” generally in U.S. in early 19c. (Thoreau, J.Q. Adams, etc.).
– pole (n): “northern or southern end of Earth’s axis,” late 14c., from Old French pole or directly from Latin polus “end of an axis;” also “the sky, the heavens” (a sense sometimes used in English from 16c.), from Greek polos “pivot, axis of a sphere, the sky,” from PIE *kwol- “turn round” (PIE *kw- becomes Greek p- before some vowels), from root *kwel- (1) “revolve, move round.”
Originally principally in reference to the celestial sphere and the fixed points about which (by the revolution of the Earth) the stars appear to revolve; also sometimes of the terrestrial poles (poles of this world), the two points on the Earth’s surface which mark the axis of rotation.
2. South Pole, the southern end of the Earth’s axis, lying in Antarctica, about 300 miles (480 km) south of the Ross Ice Shelf. This geographic South Pole does not coincide with the magnetic South Pole, from which magnetic compasses point and which lies on the Adélie Coast (at about 66°00′ S, 139°06′ E; the magnetic pole moves about 8 miles [13 km] to the northwest each year). Nor does it coincide with the geomagnetic South Pole, the southern end of the Earth’s geomagnetic field (this pole also moves; during the early 1990s it was located about 79°13′ S, 108°44′ E). The geographic pole, at an elevation of some 9,300 feet (2,830 metres; the elevation also changes constantly) above sea level, has six months of complete daylight and six months of total darkness each year. Ice thickness is 8,850 feet (2,700 metres). First reached by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen on December 14, 1911, the pole was reached the following year by the British explorer Robert F. Scott and in 1929 by the American explorer Richard E. Byrd. After reaching the South Pole on January 11, 1986, the British explorer Robert Swan led an expedition to the North Pole, reaching his destination on May 14, 1989 and thereby becoming the first person to walk to both poles. The South Pole is the site of a U.S. station and landing strip (Amundsen-Scott); owing to the movement of the polar ice cap, a new location of the exact rotational pole is marked periodically by station personnel.
3. Robert Falcon Scott (born June 6, 1868, Devonport, Devon, England—died c. March 29, 1912, Antarctica) was a British naval officer and explorer who led the famed ill-fated second expedition to reach the South Pole (1910–12).
In June 1910 Scott embarked on a second Antarctic expedition. Its aims were to study the Ross Sea area and reach the South Pole. Equipped with motor sledges, ponies, and dogs, he and 11 others started overland for the pole from Cape Evans on October 24, 1911. The motors soon broke down; the ponies had to be shot before reaching 83°30′ S; and from there the dog teams were sent back. On December 10 the party began to ascend Beardmore Glacier with three man-hauled sledges. By December 31 seven men had been returned to the base. The remaining polar party—Scott, E.A. Wilson, H.R. Bowers, L.E.G. Oates, and Edgar Evans—reached the pole on January 17, 1912. Exhausted by their trek, they were bitterly disappointed to find evidence that Roald Amundsen had preceded them to the pole by about a month.
S: 1. Etymonline – https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=south+pole (last access: 20 July 2024). 2&3. EncBrit – https://www.britannica.com/place/South-Pole (last access: 20 July 2024).
SYN: south geographical pole
S: TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=South+Pole&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 20 July 2024)
CR: North Pole, penguin.
