I can speak personally to a warrant Amazon literally said "no thanks" to. It took a while for me discover (and Amazon never informed me it occurred) but later in court, officials released Amazon's denial of the warrant on grounds of being too wide sweeping and vague. I will upload it later and redact all the details...
The exact same verbiage was used for a few other companies including Comcast who bent over backwards to lower their dragnet.
This statement by Bezos rings really true to me and they will keep my business.
Many (most?) sources define "biannual" only as "twice a year". Yet Merriam-Webster says: "Some people prefer to use semiannual to refer to something that occurs twice a year, reserving biannual for things that occur once every two years."
It's a good lesson for contract writers and anyone else that wants to be clear. Never use any of those terms. Instead, write, "Inspections will be done every 24 months", or, "The toner needs to be ordered every six months".
If something is supposed to occur every other Friday? Write it just like that, or "every 14 days". Don't say, "Paychecks are distributed bi-weekly"
Say you've got a 10 new joiners per week at your high-turnover packing factory, and a sign outside the admin office that says "Paychecks are distributed bi-weekly".
Maybe typically 5 of them have had a job before in the area, 3 have had a job elsewhere and 2 have never had a job. Not all of them have the same level of education.
How many will misunderstand your sign? Might any of those misunderstandings about money cause problems for people?
Considering the comparitive cost of writing the sign as "every two weeks", and the reduction in potential confusion, it seems like a no-brainer to write it that way.
(more likely the people who decided that all have new jobs now)