jadero

Canadian here, with 50 years in the workforce. I've never once been paid semi-weekly or bimonthly. Here, biweekly is every two weeks semi-monthly is every half month. Obviously, that latter is often spoken of as twice a month, which just adds to the confusion between "bi" and "semi".

The reality is that these words, like most words (at least in English), mean whatever the speaker wants them to mean and consensus can be hard to reach.

I give you the phrase "table the discussion". Sometimes it means to formally bring something up for discussion. Other times it means setting the discussion aside for future consideration.

Or, my favourite from my childhood, "fat chance" which means that something is even less likely than if it had a slim chance. Granted, that might be more in the line of idiomatic slang, but it stands as part of at least the era's Canadian English that did have broad consensus and still does, I think.

Basically, the Saskatchewan playbook. We no longer have provincial liquor stores, and it shows in staff knowledge (lower), service levels (lower), and pricing (higher). To my eyes, selection has gone downhill, too, but that may actually be larger market forces. (I like a wide variety of beers, but detest the fruit-flavoured ones. It's getting harder to find variety packs and especially variety packs that don't include the fruit-flavoured ones.)

"Semi truck" is not half a truck, but a truck designed to carry one half the weight of the cargo it is hauling. A semi trailer is one designed to have half of its load (by weight) carried by the tow vehicle. A standard trailer gets difficult and possibly dangerous to tow if the weight carried by the tow vehicle (hitch weight) strays too far outside the 8%-12% range.

And just to add to the confusion, Dodge popularized something called the "hemi engine"--an engine with a "hemi head", not half an engine. And "hemi head" refers not to "1/2 an engine head" but to the approximately hemispherical (1/2 sphere) shape of the combustion chambers cast/machined into the engine head.

My biggest problem with this whole thing is the legal framing of his actions.

If the bus had instead been a car with a single, middle-aged occupant, I think everything would have gone quite a bit differently.

If that single occupant had not been killed, but made a full recovery, it definitely would have gone a lot differently.

If it had been merely a cop observing the infraction, he would have escaped with just a ticket. At worst, I suppose he might have got a temporary license suspension.

I have difficulty accepting that the identical behaviour should have such radically different punishments just because pure chance leads to radically different outcomes.

Note that I'm not saying that someone who kills someone else should be getting off scott free, regardless of the behaviour that led to the death. But maybe there is room to increase the penalties when dangerous behaviours have little or no consequence as well as room to move on how we handle behaviours that rarely have devastating consequences. Let's face it, the vast majority of those who even deliberately blow through rural stop signs will never even get a ticket, let alone kill someone.

Personally, I don't see this person as a threat to our society, so I see no reason to deport him.

I'm well aware. I wasn't explicit enough in my complaint.

Having been forced to use the abomination that Telus built to provide Saskatchewan residents with web access to personal health records, I stand by my claim that not being able to build (or manage the building of) a website is reason enough to exclude them from anything that can actually cause harm.

This is one of the sites I had in mind when commenting elsewhere that management doesn't seem to understand or care that modern software development requires teams made up of those who specialize in everything from security to user interface design, not a bunch of random "nerds" popped in and out following the quarterly staffing budget.

I can see it now: random doctors with random qualifications assigned randomly to whatever task is at hand.

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

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.

Great. They can barely run a website and somebody wants them to do health care? Lunacy.

I was taught that the "bi" prefix was a multiplier and "semi" was a divider.

That meant biweekly, bimonthly, biannually were every 2 weeks, months, years and semi-weekly, semi-monthly, semi-annually were every half a week, half a month, and half a year.

Then the real world intruded and I've been confused ever since. About the only time I hear "semi" and "bi" used on a regular basis the way I expect is with pay periods. Biweekly is every two weeks and semi-monthly is twice a month.

Canada, by the way.

PS: I suppose bisexual and semi trailers also fit my expectations.

And plants.

As long as there also appropriate laws and regulations on the use of biometric recognition and retention of recordings in which there is no complaint.

How about instead of being "not trained to do" neck kneelings, they be trained not to do neck kneelings.