Years ago when I was in college I was marked down on a paper for using the term twilight to describe that time of half-light before dawn. I was told that that was something that only happened in the evening, at dusk. Being the passive person I was, I didn't go searching through dictionaries to prove my point.
So I was checking the weather on Weather Underground to see about compacting journals tomorrow, since it was pouring today, and they listed Twilight, Civil Twilight, and Nautical Twilight for morning and night.
Curious, I did a 'define: twilight' search in Google. And it spit out this, from Wikipedia: 'Twilight is the time before sunrise or after sunset when sunlight scattered in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere and the surface of the Earth.' In fact, going to the article itself (which explains the difference between Twilight, Civil Twilight, and Nautical Twilight), it goes on to say: 'Often confused with dusk, twilight is specifically defined as the period either side of night-time during which it is possible to conduct outdoor activities without the aid of artificial light,' taken from the definition as put forward by the US Naval Observatory.
I feel vindicated. Take that, UK.
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