this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
169 points (93.3% liked)

No Stupid Questions

2321 readers
79 users here now

There is no such thing as a Stupid Question!

Don't be embarrassed of your curiosity; everyone has questions that they may feel uncomfortable asking certain people, so this place gives you a nice area not to be judged about asking it. Everyone here is willing to help.


Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca still apply!


Thanks for reading all of this, even if you didn't read all of this, and your eye started somewhere else, have a watermelon slice ๐Ÿ‰.


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Similar case in point: "bimonthly" means "twice a month." That makes sense.

But the definition for "bi-weekly" does not make sense.

What do you think?

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fortnightly means every two weeks. Bi weekly means twice a week.

load more comments (1 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Think of biweekly and biweekly as homonyms, they can mean either and you figure out the meaning through context.

Very few things happen twice a week, biweekly usually means every second week, but it's never used because fortnightly is preferred.

Others here are saying bimonthly means twice a month but I've never heard it used that way. Again, very few things happen twice a month, it's always fortnightly which is not the same. Lots of things happen every second month, "the board meets bimonthly", that means 6 times a year.

Biannual always means twice a year because what things do you do every second year?

In all cases you can use the alternative meaning like "I visit my cousin biannually" and it's not incorrect but of course "I visit my cousin every second year" avoids confusion.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (4 children)

The word for an occurrence of every two years or for a duration of two years is biennial. Plenty of events are biennial, such as festivals, exhibitions and conferences. The Olympics and Football World Cup are quadrennial.

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Lots of people get paid twice a month

load more comments (3 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Just to note, while fortnightly is used frequently in many countries, it is almost never used in the US, which I think is what contributes to the posters confusion (assuming they are from the US) .

load more comments (1 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (4 children)

we have bi like in binary(yes, no/ one week yes other no) and bi in like bisexual(atraction to 2 genders/ twice a week) i think the problem is more deep than the week

load more comments (4 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Because "weekly" is kind of a fraction (1/week), and 2/week and 1/(2week) are very different, but both can be pronounced very similarly. Read kind of like (2-week)ly and 2-(weekly). Which is why both meanings are used, so you need to use context to disambiguate, or just guess if context isn't available.

This is also the reason why in this thread people say "semiweekly" is the other option, but they don't all use the same other option. You have the same, but inverse problem there.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (9 children)

Yes it does not make sense English is a dumb language. See also: bicycle and bisection

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments
view more: โ€น prev next โ€บ