In season or out

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Rex  #201938  Tue, 28 Feb 06 09:59 PM
Showers of welder's sparks gust through the night sky above Moscow's frozen city centre. Glass and steel palaces of business and leisure gleam like mirages in the gloom.

Out in the park at Tsaritsyno, where a real palace has stood famously unfinished for centuries since Catherine the Great snubbed its design, modern metal roof frames top the elegant walls.

This is a city awash with money rebuilding itself after decades of communist rule, and the boom shows no sign of abating, in season or out.

Encouraged by Yury Luzhkov, city mayor since 1992, it is a boom which some fear is sweeping away the city's rich architectural heritage to make way for the new.
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What is the meaning of  the words '' in season or out' ?  I can't fathom it. Could you plese tell me the meaning of it?


  
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Clive  #201939  Tue, 28 Feb 06 10:13 PM

Hi,

This is a city awash with money rebuilding itself after decades of communist rule, and the boom shows no sign of abating, in season or out.

Apples grow in the summer, and are picked in the Fall season. Thus, when they are available, they are said to be 'in season'. In the winter, they are 'out of season'. Figuratively, the terms 'in season' and out of season' are used for things that 'go in a cycle'. If something is available 'in season or out', it means that the cyclic idea applies to it, but that the availablility is more than would be expected, ie all the time.

Having said all that, the sentence seems unclear to me. I don't see any clear suggestion as to what the seasonal/cyclical phenomenon is. I guess it just means the 'boom' will continue, and shows no sign of stopping. I don't think the phrase 'in season or out' is well used here.

Best wishes, Clive

  
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