No Stupid Questions

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Why does bi-weekly mean "every two weeks?" This has always bothered me because intuitively it should mean "twice a week." (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca

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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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[–] aeronmelon@lemm.ee 6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

An old word that fell out of use to describe a two-week period is "fortnight."

It should make a come back, but I fear the current generations would always misspell it for... reasons.

[–] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 19 points 10 months ago

Fortnight is in routine usage in the UK.

[–] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

Old word?

Only in America, surely. Fortnightly is as common as weekly in most other English-speaking nations

[–] Pappabosley@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Oh, I didn't get the memo, I used fortnight/ly all the time

[–] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 10 months ago

Very commonly used in Australia.