[mtVessel]

Biweekly means every two weeks. Semiweekly means twice a week. (Fortnightly doesn't mean anything outside of the Commonwealth.)

Please keep (politely) correcting people. It's only us against the hordes!

[jejones3141]

OTOH, were it not for bad Latin speakers, we wouldn't have the Romance languages. A John Simon/William Safire of the era is an important source of data on their development--he wrote a list of proper Latin terms and the corresponding words in the bad Latin he was seeing and/or hearing. Dang it, it's not caballus, it's equus!

[mtVessel]

So you're saying that when I correct someone publicly, I'm not being an insufferable pedant, I'm contemporaneously documenting usage for future linguists!

Ooh, I'm gonna get so much mileage out of that one.

[jacalata]

> Biweekly means every two weeks.

Since when, exactly? http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/18553?rskey=7qC25f&result=2#ei...

[mtVessel]

Hmm. Guess I should have looked it up before posting. Serves me right for not being more bi-curious.

[thedufer]

While it has meant both every two weeks and twice a week for a long time, this is an interesting case where convincing people otherwise would pretty clearly improve our language. Even the page you linked to implies this:

> The ambiguous usage is confusing, and might be avoided by the use of semi-

[merrua]

> Fortnightly doesn't mean anything outside of the Commonwealth

Really? I live and learn. I thought that was commonplace.

[teh_klev]

In the spirit the correctness and accuracy, which Commonwealth? :)

[mtVessel]

Point taken. Um...the one(s) where a 'fortnight' is still a thing?