Posts Tagged ‘english’

Biweekly, bimonthly

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
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Today I was putting together a spreadsheet to compare offerings from some companies we’re evaluating. As I was listing the frequency of something they do, I was going to put biweekly, but then I wasn’t sure how that would be interpreted. One thing that has always frustrated me (and confused me to no end) is this term with its conflicting meaning. Let’s take a look at the definition:

bi·week·ly
adjective & adverb
  1. appearing or taking place every two weeks or twice a week.
noun
  1. a periodical that appears every two weeks or twice a week.

 

I mean, is this somebody’s idea of a joke? How do you allow one single word to simultaneously mean two things that don’t jive with each other? They differ mathematically by a factor of 4. FOUR! What if I demanded my paycheck (paid out biweekly) twice a week? After all, that’s biweekly too. Then I’d get paid four times as much, given each check amount is the same. So if I agreed to pay you $100 biweekly, would you expect $10,400 by the end of a year or just a paltry $2600? That’s a staggering difference, isn’t it?? I just don’t get how this so often and so easily overlooked.

The same goes for the similarly infuriatingly vague “bimonthly” term that runs along those same illogical lines. When I say bimonthly, how do you know if I mean twice a month or every other month? There really is no true way to tell without using other phrases… and doesn’t that rather defeat the purpose of a word that is supposed to have a meaning that people understand? Can’t we assign only one definition to it or get rid of the word??! What if I said I’d meet you at noon, except noon meant either 6 in the morning or 10 at night? When would you show up?

So ultimately what did I decide to do for my conundrum at work? I used the term fortnightly.

A lesson in apostrophes

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , ,
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I was writing an email recently and wanted to indicate the possessive of Charles.  I vaguely remember being taught that it should be Charles’ with no extra “s” but since then I had read styling guides that said technically it should be Charles’s, though really either is acceptable.  To some people, Charles’s may seem wrong, but it is not.  For the sake of not confusing people, I tend to use Charles’ since I know that was commonly taught in schools across the nation.  However, I much prefer using Charles’s; if it weren’t for the fact that some people were never taught that was correct, I’d use it more often.  After all, who wants to go into a grammar/punctuation lesson in the middle of an email exchange?

I actually did do that in this case, but only because the thread included very bright people who probably knew exactly what I was talking about and maybe even experienced the same hesitation using Charles’s vs. Charles’.  I was happy to have that feeling validated when one of the girls replied confirming my statement and offering a source that explains the use of apostrophes: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe (This site is also a great source for other interesting, entertaining, and information infographic cartoons.

This incident gave me confidence to go forth using Charles’s from now on.  Who cares if other people think I’m wrong and don’t know the rules of English?  Those who really know what they’re talking about will know the truth.  ;-P

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