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Why does bi-weekly mean "every two weeks?" This has always bothered me because intuitively it should mean "twice a week." (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca

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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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[–] ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Absolutely. I know I'm tilting at windmills. I'm being idealist, not prescriptive. But at least in legalese, if one were to write "hencefore 'semiweekly' shall mean 'at a frequency of every 14 days'", I would think, "well they're wrong, but at least it's not confusing".

For background, I'm a mathematician. I'm used to laying out definitions.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 1 points 11 months ago

Also am a mathematician although not work as one, I'm not used to always providing the definitions first but it could've made so many things better