Comments on: Bi vs. Semi (weekly/monthly/annually)

By: erich

erich — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 21:11:11 +0000

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.

By: Jane

Jane — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:33:22 +0000

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.

By: Julie

Julie — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:32:41 +0000

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.

By: Charlie Hand

Charlie Hand — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:39:20 +0000

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.

By: Jane

Jane — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 02:19:33 +0000

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.

By: Troy

Troy — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:42:49 +0000

> 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.
#

By: Jane

Jane — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 14:47:27 +0000

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.”

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:31:00 +0000

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!

By: Jane

Jane — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 02:02:12 +0000

Thanks for your post. It’s a bit long but it does add value to the discussion.

By: MarkG

MarkG — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:33:24 +0000

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.