A similar ambiguity that I had to give up on using was “next Friday”. If it’s Monday, half the people think next Friday is the one in next week. The others that it is the next Friday, the one that occurs in five days.<p>Now it’s “this Friday” or “a week from Friday”
Yet another example of temporal ambiguity is the notion of “bringing forward” or “pushing back” a deadline. The sense employed is the opposite of the ordinary use i.e., moving “back” into the past or “forward” into the future.
Regarding the claim the "semi-" is unambiguous: the fundamental confusion with "bi-" arises from dealing with a rate, and the resultant lack of, if you will, semantic associativity. The same problem can arise in exactly the same way with the former prefix. And there's nothing they can do about it, as avowed descriptivists.
Don't get me started with the (non-English) usage of "half-seven" to indicate either half past six or half past seven, depending on some non-obvious cultural factor.
Some languages, like French, make the distinction not on the prefix but on the noun used to refer to the period:<p>* bimensuel/elle : twice a month<p>* bimestriel/elle: every 2 months<p>And trimestriel and semestriel for every 3 and 6 months respectively.<p>It's strange that English left this ambiguity in usage when the semi- prefix exists.
TIL: obstreperous<p><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=obstreperous" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=obstreperous</a><p>What a great word.
To me semiweekly sounds like “somewhat” weekly (the same interpretation as in “semiconscious”). With that reading, semiweekly would mean it’s basically weekly but not quite. Maybe it’s not every week, there could be some exceptions.<p>I like there rationale of using this prefix though. In the same vein, perhaps hemiweekly? Like in hemisphere. Same logic applied but the hemi- prefix is less overloaded.
One of my favorite podcasts, Hello Internet (hosted by CGP Grey and Brady Haran, though currently on hiatus) had this section called the "biweekly weigh-in" where every sometimes the hosts would talk about their health gains.<p>Using an ambiguous word like "biweekly" was very much intentional.
These are all latin-style words, there are much worse horrors in english importing them.<p>One of my favorites is "ingenuity", used as being clever or inventive. It share the root with "ingenuidad" in spanish, which means "naive" (-ity endings correlate with -idad endings in spanish, the same way than -tion goes with -ción).<p>The word that means clever or inventive is "ingenioso" which in english should be "ingenious" (-ious goes with -ioso, e.g. "precious" and "precioso"), so as a noun, it should be "ingeniousness".<p>It confused me a lot when I was learning english.
It took me a while to realize that in italian we don't have a word to day "every two weeks".
bisettimanale means twice a week, bimensile means twice a month and bimestrale every two months.
Back in the dark ages before direct deposit, it was much better to get a paycheck biweekly (every other week) than bimonthly (15th and last day of the month).
Sanction.<p>A) explicit or official approval, permission, or ratification
B) to attach a sanction or penalty to the violation of (a right, obligation, or command)<p>Ugh.