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?

  • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

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

    • AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz
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      11 months ago

      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.

          • CrayonRosary@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            We meet once a month (monthly)
            We meet once a week (weekly)
            We meet once a semiweek (semiweekly)
            We meet once a day (daily)

            See the pattern here? Half the interval, not half the frequency. I hope you were just being cheeky.

            • Orygin@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              I’m not being cheeky. That’s how I perceive the thing, but I’m not a native English speaker and french has a way to distinguish between both cases without using semi(which is confusing too imo). Bimensuel => 2 times a month Bimestriel => every two months

      • pythonoob@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        I agree. If someone told me they wanted to do something semi weekly I’d assume they meant about once every week or even maybe less.