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€“] incompetentboob@lemmy.world 103 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It means both, twice a week and every two weeks. It's confusing but what part of english isnt?

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[โ€“] neidu@feddit.nl 78 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I'm wondering the same thing about Bible. Does it mean twice per Ble or every other Ble?

[โ€“] skeezix@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No. It means Ble likes both girls and boys.

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[โ€“] hydrospanner@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

Two bles.

The old and new testament together are two, thus "Bible".

Before the new testament they just carried around a ble.

[โ€“] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I know you're making a joke, but on the off chance someone thinks you might be onto something: it's from biblio, or book.

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[โ€“] jadero@lemmy.ca 62 points 11 months ago (13 children)

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.

[โ€“] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm on your side. Your rule makes sense, and what other people are doing doesn't make sense.

Stick to your rule and tell everyone else they're wrong.

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[โ€“] EssentialCoffee@midwest.social 54 points 11 months ago (7 children)

It means both. Welcome to English.

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[โ€“] viking@infosec.pub 26 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Bi-weekly means twice a week and every two weeks. Look it up in the dictionary of you choosing.

[โ€“] ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

We should all agree it means twice a week. As we already have fortnightly to mean every two weeks.

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[โ€“] echodot@feddit.uk 24 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

It's because of British English, and the fact that American English seems to have dropped a word which is caused confusion.

Bi-weekly means two times a week.

Fortnightly means every 2 weeks. But American English seems to have lost the word fortnightly, so there is this ambiguity now.

[โ€“] set_secret@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago (11 children)

thanks for the explanation, as an Australian reading this I had no idea what was going on cause bi-weekly means bi-weekly here and fortnight is every two weeks.

Til Americans don't have fortnights...

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[โ€“] leaky_shower_thought@feddit.nl 21 points 11 months ago (6 children)

this is TIL, for me. "fortnightly" almost always solves it.

I always think the rule was "bi-" for "two" like bicycles VS semicycles.

dictionary people say it is up to the sayer to avoid confusion.

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[โ€“] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It can be either, actually. Yes, it's stupid.

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[โ€“] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The real answer is to solve this by using different terms. For instance, "twice per week" or "every other week".

Don't try to get anyone to agree on a definition, it's just begging for problems.

[โ€“] someguy3@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 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 8 points 11 months ago (5 children)

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

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[โ€“] shrugal@lemm.ee 9 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Wait, so bi-weekly and bi-monthly mean almost the same thing (every 14/15 days)? That's insanity!

[โ€“] echodot@feddit.uk 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Bi-weekly means twice a week, and bi-monthly (Which outside of banking I've never heard anyone ever use) means every 2 weeks.

So if I do something bi-weekly then in a month I've done it eight times. If I do something bi-monthly then in a month I've done it two times.

English is stupid. Even native speakers don't understand it.

Interestingly enough my spell check refuses to even acknowledge that bi-monthly is a valid word. It's fine with bi-weekly though. So it's entirely possible there is actually no such word and it's just been created by the banking industry to get around the fact that for some reason they can't use fortnight.

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[โ€“] dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Bi means 2. Bi weekly means 2 weeks.

Semi means half. Semi weekly means every half week or twice per week.

[โ€“] brb@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Semi weekly sounds like it means every two weeks

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[โ€“] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (10 children)

The banks use โ€œbiweeklyโ€ and โ€œsemiweeklyโ€ to avoid this exact kind of ambiguity. Biweekly would be twice a week, while semiweekly would be every other week.

It comes up in banking a lot because of payroll. If you get paid every other week, you get paid semiweekly. But if you get paid on the 1st and 15th of every month, you get paid bimonthly.

[โ€“] jadero@lemmy.ca 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[โ€“] totallynotarobot@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

That's insane I would understand both of those terms to mean the exact opposite of what you described.

Also who gets paid twice a week and how do I arrange for that.

[โ€“] olmec@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago

That seems backwards to me. Mainly because if you move it to years instead of weeks, something that happens twice a year happens in half a year (semiannual) while something that happens every other year happens in 2 years (biannual).

Of course, I guess you you argue that it isn't much time for the thing to happen, but how many times it does happen. The shareholders meeting happens in January and July, so it happens twice in a year, and it should be semiannual. This is because it happens is semi-year, or 6 months. But you could argue that it happens twice in a year, so has bi-annually.

I realized I may have talked out of my original point, but I feel like my initial comment (semiannual is 6 months, and biannual is 24 months) is easier to understand.

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[โ€“] prime_number_314159@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think the conflict is between invisibly different sub-word groupings. I think of them as "(biweek)ly" = "happens every biweek" = "happens every two weeks, vs. "Bi(weekly)" = "happens twice as much as weekly" = "happens two times every week".

That doesn't really help the ambiguity, so I prefer other ways of describing the recurrent timing of events when there isn't anything obviously disambiguating them - for example, if I create a digital calendar event and name it "biweekly event", the existence/nonexistence of repeated calendar events makes it obvious what is meant.

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[โ€“] jerkface@lemmy.ca 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I prefer to use "semiweekly" for twice in a week, and so on for other periods.

[โ€“] Pappabosley@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Use it in a sentence:

I used to get hard every day, but now I'm lucky to get a semiweekly

[โ€“] PwnTra1n@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Please start a word of the day series

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[โ€“] AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 6 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Lmao I'd interpret that as every two weeks. Semi meaning "almost", so "semiweekly" would mean almost weekly, hence, every two weeks. I guess you could think "almost" the other way but I feel like semi is usually used in a way that is "quite but not as good", twice a week would be more than once a week so I semi would have to be every two weeks in my mind.

[โ€“] meant2live218@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Semi just means half. Semifinals, semester, semi-truck, etc.

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[โ€“] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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[โ€“] aeronmelon@lemm.ee 6 points 11 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.

[โ€“] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 19 points 11 months ago

Fortnight is in routine usage in the UK.

[โ€“] Pregnenolone@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

Old word?

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

[โ€“] Pappabosley@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

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

[โ€“] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 11 months ago

Very commonly used in Australia.

[โ€“] penquin@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago (4 children)

As a non-native English speaker, this is what I thought when I was first introduced to this word. I was even fighting it when I was told it meant "every two weeks". Then I caved and went with the flow. You are the first person to ever agree with me. I'm not crazy. Thank you.

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[โ€“] andthenthreemore@startrek.website 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

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