3 ms·
Semiweekly is explicit. Biweekly is ambiguous. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/on-biweekly-and-bimonthly https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-a
by daxfohl 7y ago
Semiweekly is explicit. Biweekly is ambiguous.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/on-biweekly-and-bimonthly https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/on-biweekly-an...
Biweekly and bimonthly can mean the same thing because of the prefix bi-, which here can mean “occurring every two” or “occurring twice in.”
- jessaustin 7y agoThe idiom is damaged by careless use. It reminds me of some friends who insist that "penultimate" means "ultimate"...
- daxfohl 7y agoI don't think it is carelessness in this case. The prefix bi can have both meanings and ultimately it comes down to indeterminate parsing: (biweek)ly or bi(weekly), and thus can only be resolved by convention. But both usages have been long established (at least in the US) so we're stuck. This seems far different from the penultimate or literally or hysterical misuses that became a careless norm. Semiweekly suffers from the same logical discrepancy, but unlike biweekly the convention is well established (though you hardly ever hear the term in the US. In fact before this thread I wouldn't have known which it meant. (other than definitely being the opposite of biweekly... so...))