[ic] Interchange-users guidelines [bi-monthly posting]

[Warren Odom]

Law's-a-mercy!!  Wow, I never heard of that ambiguity before, which
Webster's cites.  I've programmed on more than one payroll system, and they
always without exception use biweekly for every two weeks and semimonthly
for twice a month (two different time periods).

I checked another online dictionary (American Heritige) for a second
opinion.  Sorry I don't know the URL, since it was accessed within another
application, not a browser, so I'll have to just relay the info.  It also
lists *both* definitions for biweekly and bimonthly (no hyphen, by the way).
However, it refers the reader to a usage note which mentions only one of
those definitions:

Bimonthly and biweekly mean "once every two months" and "once every two
weeks." For "twice a month" and "twice a week," the words semimonthly and
semiweekly should be used. Since there is a great deal of confusion over the
distinction, a writer is well advised to substitute expressions like every
two months or twice a month where possible. However, used as nouns to denote
"a publication that appears every two months," the words with bi- are
unavoidable.

           -- Warren



-----Original Message-----
From:	interchange-users-admin@lists.akopia.com
[mailto:interchange-users-admin@lists.akopia.com] On Behalf Of Doug Alcorn
Sent:	Friday, December 15, 2000 11:14 AM
To:	interchange-users@minivend.com
Subject:	Re: [ic] Interchange-users guidelines [bi-monthly posting]

"Warren Odom" <warren-odom@stenocall.com> writes:

> I notice it's been only two weeks since the last "bi-monthly" posting.  If
> that schedule is correct, maybe you should change the subject to read
> "semi-monthly."    :-)
>

The problem is with English itself, not Mike.

http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=bi-

Both definitions are correct.  Although semi-montly is probably more
clear.
--
 (__)  Doug Alcorn (mailto:doug@lathi.net http://www.lathi.net)
 oo /  PGP Finger Print = 02B3 1E26 BCF2 9AAF 93F1  61D7 450C B264 3E63 D543
 |_/   "It's too late for paradise" (at least in this life)



_______________________________________________
Interchange-users mailing list
Interchange-users@lists.akopia.com
http://lists.akopia.com/mailman/listinfo/interchange-users