Bi vs. Semi (weekly/monthly/annually)
Using bi or semi in front of time periods can cause tremendous confusion.
Biweekly means once every two weeks or twice a week.
Bimonthly means once every two months or twice a month.
In addition, a biweekly publication is issued every two weeks and a bimonthly publication is issued every two months.
Semiweekly means twice a week.
Semimonthly means twice a month.
To avoid confusion, you may want to substitute the actual time frame for these confusing terms.
For example, say, “I visit my aunt every two weeks,” not “I visit my aunt bimonthly.” If you mean every two weeks, you may also say, “I visit my aunt semimonthly.”
Posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 1:14 am
36 Responses to “Bi vs. Semi (weekly/monthly/annually)”
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Anyone who actually says “I visit my aunt semimonthly.” should be taken out and shot!
You have a point, Eric.
how can this be accurate?!?!?!:
Biweekly means once every two weeks or twice a week.
Bimonthly means once every two months or twice a month.
It seems to me that this confusion is perpetuated by “authorities” who have accepted the generally misunderstood use of the words. This definition below actually has some merit and should be taught by all:
http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/bisemi.html
The English prefixes bi- and semi- are often mixed up by native speakers. A semi-annual reading of this lesson will help more than a bi-annual one.
Bi-
Bi- comes from the Latin meaning two. When used with a temporal word, bi- means “every two” or “every other.”
This magazine is published bi-weekly, on the 1st and 15th of the month.
Congressional elections are held biennially, on even-numbered years.
The U.S. celebrated the bicentennial of its 1776 founding in 1976.
Semi-
Semi- comes from the Latin meaning half. When used with a temporal word, semi- means “twice.”
Our semi-annual meetings are in January and July.
I get paid semi-monthly, on the 5th and 19th of each month.
The semi-weekly deliveries occur on Monday and Thursday.
The Bottom Line
The confusion between bi- and semi- occurs because both prefixes are related to the concept of two. But bi- means something that happens every other (week, month…), or every two (weeks, months…), while semi- indicates something that happens twice every (week, month) or every half (week, month).
I agree with you wholeheartedly that the distinctions between “semi” and “bi” should be kept; however, because people confuse the two, the language has evolved (devolved) such that these prefixes are now often synonymous. By the way, you presented a very well-written argument!
The original post is wrong and has just confused any reader.
Biweekly DOES NOT MEAN twice a week. Twice a week is SEMI-WEEKLY.
BI = every two
–Bi-weekly = evey two weeks
–Bi-monthly = every two months
–Bi-yearly = every two years
Semi = half
–Semi-monthly = twice per month (roughly every two weeks in perspective to a month, meaning it is not exactly 14 days)
–Semi-yearly = twcie per year (every 6 months)
The prefix “bi-” has taken on both meanings: every two and twice. Therefore, one must now EXPLAIN oneself when writing or saying an expression such as “bi-weekly.” Please don’t blame the messenger (me) for this unfortunate development.
if the messenger is knowingly delivering a bad message, then i shall blame the messenger. i suppose you would write that it is OK to to place “an” in front of the word “historic” because it’s starting to become common (devolve) to make the “h” silent. (bob costas says it that way!)
I would not write or say “an historic” because the “h” is still audible.
Don’t shoot the messenger. Mike got it right. Take his justification as a basic grammer reminder to the folks at Webster and start righting the wrong.
Having a secondary meaning for a term evolve through usage is one thing. Having a contrary meaning is simply wrong. Standard bearers are supposed to guard against that.
You’re right.
Putting aside the rants, the following is a contradiction and cannot be accurate, regardless of the word used:
“Biweekly means once every two weeks or twice a week.”
The same goes for Bimonthly.
If it’s “once every two weeks”, that’s equal to twice every FOUR weeks, not every week. Jane, I’m still confused. I think you should correct this post.
Every dictionary that I have checked agrees with those definitions. “Biweekly” and “bimonthly” both have two distinctly different definitions, so I can understand why you are confused. If you ever subscribe to a biweekly or bimonthly publication, you will need to make sure you understand the terms.
I guess the main purpose of language is clear communication – picking the shortest way of writing or saying something isn’t always the best option.
It doesn’t take a massive amount of either breath or keystrokes to use
“twice yearly” or “every two years” instead of either “semi-” or “bi-” leaving no further clarification necessary. Job done…
I agree that the shortest way is not always the best. If a little extra effort makes things clearer for the reader, it’s worth it.
What I don’t understand is the dictionary defines ‘bi-annual’ as twice a year.
Unfortunately, this is another example of how the language has evolved (or devolved). Some dictionaries list only the one definition, however Dictionary.com lists two different definitions for the word biannual:
1. occurring twice a year (semiannual) and
2. occurring every two years (biennial)
That’s why I recommend using the actual time frames to avoid confusion. For example:
Teresa visits her parents in Manila twice each year.
OR
Teresa visits her parents in Manila once every two years.
I’m not sure why the examples given equate bi-weekly and semi-monthly- they are not the same thing.
For example, most people get paid bi-weekly (that is, 26 paychecks a year) but my company pays me semi-monthly (24 paychecks a year). One isn’t better than the other, but I’m VERY aware of the difference. Personally I prefer semi-monthly paychecks; bills, rent, etc are all monthly expenses, and the bi-weekly schedule for paychecks ensure they often don’t match up with incoming expenses.
The examples equated biweekly and semimonthly because that is how they are defined in the dictionary. “Bi” and “semi” are now often synonymous. You gave some good examples of why it is so important to understand the exact terms when either of these words is being used.
I like Fortnightly…only one meaning
And for our American readers, fortnightly means occurring once in a fortnight (14 days).
I use bi-weekly and bi-monthly in the same way as bifurcate – to split in two.
I suppose you have about a 50% chance of being understood! (By the way, neither biweekly nor bimonthly are hyphenated.)
Nick, I think you’re pointing to the source of the confusion. Many people think that since bifurcating (or bisecting) something divides it, then biweekly must mean to divide the week; but they misunderstand the derivation of the word. The reason that bifurcating something divides it is because it causes it to have two (bi-) forks (furcates) or branches. (Bisecting creates two sections). Over time this confusion has become so widespread that the words biweekly, bimonthly, etc., have lost their utility. I agree that dictionaries should seek to guard against this, but word misuse isn’t illegal, much as we might lament it.
Shall we talk about the similar state of the word “peruse” next?
The confusion is easy to explain if you think of it in terms of period and frequency and ambiguous association of the word parts.
Breaking down the term biweekly, for example:
bi: 2,
week: a period of one week,
ly: converts a period to a frequency, or “once per”. This is the equivalent of taking the inverse (1/X) in mathematics.
So translating to mathematics ambiguously gives:
1 / (2 * week) or 2 * (1 / week)
where what goes in or out of the parentheses isn’t clear from the word.
Back to words, these correspond to associating the parts like this:
(biweek)ly or bi(weekly)
with the the parentheses in either of two positions.
This analysis applies to all the periods (week, month, year) the same way. It also applies analogously for the “semi” prefix and for the less common “tri” prefix and other numeric multiplier prefixes.
Neither seems obviously better to me, but noting this usage: “Our semiannual meeting (without the “ly”) is held semiannually” implies to me that the whole front part of the word is the repeating period, so the first way of associating the word parts seems a little more consistent.
This would make the (semiannual)ly association the preferred one, and it would mean once every half year, or twice per year. This would also make biannual consistent with biennial, and it produces the usual association for fortnightly, for whatever that’s worth.
Someone noted that these words are not hyphenated. I could see where hyphenating them might indicate the alternate association, but of course that assumes you know what the usual association is!
I’m glad you found this easy to explain, Matt. However, I hope no one receives a letter or email explaining that the semiannual meeting is held semiannually!
I love Mike’s definition above. However, the example for bi-weekly given (“This magazine is published bi-weekly, on the 1st and 15th of the month.”) is I think incorrect. Because weeks are of fixed length and months are not, bi-weekly (ie. every two week) publications can’t possibly fall on the 1st and 15th of every month. Semi-monthly should have been applied in this instance. This highlights the subtle difference between the bi- and semi- prefix when applied to a temporal word. If your employer tells you that you get paid semi-monthly (ie. 1st and 15th) and you take that to mean bi-weekly and set your auto billpay for every other Friday, you’ll be bouncing checks on most months! Bi- simply means “two fixed periods added together”; semi means “happening twice in a fixed period”. Semi- can always mean bi- but bi- may not necessarily imply semi-. I love to add to the confusion
.
This whole thread of responses gives a debate about the evolving usage of these words. It has been politely and professionally enjoined by all of the participants, which speaks well of all of you. I especially like Matt Emerson’s discussion of how the ambiguity that seems to have arisen in these words can be represented as an ambiguity in the order of mathematical operations.
I’m not sure if anyone has established with research that the terms used to be clear and are only recently becoming confused. But that has been alluded to in the thread. So, if that is correct, then we are seeing some evolving language use at an interesting time in its development.
I’m not a linguist, but I have known a few. They study, among many language phenomena, how word meanings change over time. Because in the end, one can see that word and phrase usage is a community convention. And I believe there are some examples where those in authority positions on language usage have tried valiantly, but failed to stop an incorrect usage from arising, becoming common, and finally becoming accepted. If someone has any good examples of this, I’d love to hear of them. The only one I can quote is the use of the word “hopefully”.
So, is it too late to stop these prefixes from becoming confusing? Can the English teachers and makers of dictionaries and people who publish style manuals across the land make a campaign to assert their authority and make sure that it returns to a clear case:
bi-Xly meaning once every 2X’s
semi-Xly meaning twice every X
I can imagine a social experiment with enough interest in which they could actually win the day.
But then the problem is that people use words quickly and with only slight effort to choose correctly, so there will always be the pressure for the confusion to arise again. After a whole generation attests to the shining success of our grammarians in helping clarify the use of our entire language community, I assume the confusion would begin again to slowly creep in.
On the other hand, perhaps a concerted effort could be mounted again as often as necessary. I don’t believe that all gardens ultimately will succumb to the jungle, because they can be maintained indefinitely with a steady effort.
Sorry for the length of this post (if it gets accepted). I just couldn’t resist putting all of these thoughts down once.
Thanks for your post. It’s a bit long but it does add value to the discussion.
There is plenty of comment on the fact that the English language has evolved/devolved and it seems to be the justification for incorrect usage of words and/or prefixes. I believe that rather than teach that “both are now accepted,” we should teach that “although both are being used interchangeably, X means P and Y means Q” (not X means P and/or Q, as does Y).
If we keep accepting change based on ignorance, we’ll soon be reading books written in “leetspeak” and/or “SMS language.”
I w0u1d h8 that!
Our practice is to inform our readers as to what is currently considered acceptable and let them decide for themselves if there are multiple options. Quite often it will depend on the context and the situation. We do not “justify” anything that is “incorrect usage.”
> If you mean every two weeks,
> you may also say, “I visit my aunt semimonthly.”
Being paid every two weeks is much different than being paid semimonthly. There will be some months where I’m paid three times in a month.
Troy.
#
As stated earlier by Sebastian, his company does pay semimonthly (24 paychecks a year). Your company pays biweekly. To avoid confusion, you may want to substitute the actual time frame for these terms.
Here’s how I get confused. I know what weekly is (once a week). I know what bi means (2) and I know what semi means (1/2). The reason I pause is: does the prefix apply to the frequency of the events or to the period of the events? Semiweekly: Half of the frequency “once a week” is once every two weeks, whereas half the period “once a week” is twice a week. The correct answer of course is, semi refers to half the period, not half the frequency. But it cannot be deduced. It has to be memorized.
If I get paid semi monthly, should my pay checks be more for the months that have three paychecks in it? Right now it`s the same no matter how many weeks there is in that month and i feel like I am working a week for free.
Semimonthly means twice a month. That means you get 24 paychecks a year. A person who gets paid biweekly (every two weeks) gets 26 paychecks a year. If a worker is earning a known annual salary, then it all comes out the same whether it is divided by 24 and paid semimonthly or whether it is divided by 26 and paid biweekly.
I don’t think words have devolved, I think people, specifically our literacy and attention to detail have devolved. Factor in an increase in cultural diversity and we have a society where a growing majority misuse words and, over time, redefine the English language. I’m 43 years old. If I tried to sell bi-weekly as twice a week (semi-weekly) when I was in elementary/middle school 30-35 years ago, I’d currently be the oldest 5th grader on the planet. At the current rate, in another 30-35 years, bi-weekly may mean a few times a week, every several weeks or anything in between. Fabulous.
Wait, I have an idea. Use semi-weekly – since it doesn’t (currently) have conflicting definitions – to convey twice a week and use bi-weekly for every two weeks(as originally intended).
Of course, to avoid ambiguity, one could go with semi-quad-weekly (twice every four weeks). Just saying.