this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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No Stupid Questions

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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?

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[โ€“] someguy3@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

There was often much confusion about this in the past because as you said it can mean multiple things. We seem to have gone away from any proper etymological use of the word 'bi' and have defined (for the most part) biweekly to be every two weeks, bimonthly to be twice a month, biannually to be twice a year (that one maybe not). Legal documents that I see don't use those terms to avoid confusion.

[โ€“] jerkface@lemmy.ca 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Frustratingly, "biannual" can also mean twice a year or every two years. Fortunately there is the "biennial" which unambiguously means every two years.

[โ€“] baconisaveg@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Bicentennial is also every 50 years.

[โ€“] jadero@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Are you sure about that? I'm from Canada and distinctly remember the travel ads urging us to head on down to participate in the bicentennial celebrations, meant to celebrate the second century of that country's founding.

[โ€“] baconisaveg@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

bicentennial

Well shit, I stand corrected.

[โ€“] jadero@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Language is a wonderful chaos. You're just on the leading edge of change! :)

[โ€“] baconisaveg@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago

One of the 'trivia' things on the display in our elevator was about how Websters had a listing for 5 years that wasn't actually a word, 'dord'. Like come on, now you can't even trust words in the dictionary?!