Twice a month should be semi-monthly. Every two months should be bimonthly.
Okay, um, I'm lost. Uh, I'm angry, and I'm armed, so if you two have something that you need to work out --
Mal ,'War Stories'
Natter 68: Bork Bork Bork
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
-t - Aug 24, 2011 12:57:27 pm PDT #22021 of 30001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Sue - Aug 24, 2011 12:58:30 pm PDT #22022 of 30001
hip deep in pie
I have only understood it to mean every two months. It's very confusing if it means both.
Amy - Aug 24, 2011 12:58:44 pm PDT #22023 of 30001
Because books.
Or, what -t said!
Ginger - Aug 24, 2011 12:59:45 pm PDT #22024 of 30001
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Why does it mean both?
As I understand it, it's for the same reason we have flammable and inflammable. Its original meaning was "every two months," but people kept using it as meaning twice a month, and the powers that be gave up.
Signed,
My twice-weekly college newspaper was semiweekly, not biweekly
-t - Aug 24, 2011 1:02:16 pm PDT #22025 of 30001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Someone explained to me the difference between flammable and inflammable once, and it made perfect sense, but then I forgot it.
It's possible that was a dream.
SailAweigh - Aug 24, 2011 1:03:47 pm PDT #22026 of 30001
Nana korobi, ya oki. (Fall down seven times, stand up eight.) ~Yuzuru Hanyu/Japanese proverb
ita ! I've been doing the stairs at work, too. I started out only going down. Then I slowly started adding going up a floor at a time (I park on the third level and work on the seventh floor.) I've been going down every evening for a while and then I slowly started going up a floor at a time, week by week. I can make it 3-1/2 to the full four floors now every morning. I started doing that about a month and a half ago. Today, I only made it up two floors in the morning (the humidity was something fierce and the stairwells aren't air conditioned), but I went out for lunch with seven floors down and four floors up, so I feel I made up for my early morning wimpiness. I think it's a great way to build cardio endurance.
Ginger - Aug 24, 2011 1:06:04 pm PDT #22027 of 30001
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Someone explained to me the difference between flammable and inflammable once, a
They both mean "this shit will burn." The original word was inflammable, from the Latin for "to set fire to." People kept thinking the "in" meant "not," so people labeling dangerous things went with "flammable."
Strega - Aug 24, 2011 1:09:11 pm PDT #22028 of 30001
Semi means half. A semicircle is half of a circle. A semiannual publication comes out twice a year. Semimonthly means twice a month.
Bi- is always unclear and is best avoided because it just means "two", without indicating if you're halving or doubling.
Ginger - Aug 24, 2011 1:11:06 pm PDT #22029 of 30001
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
This is why I don't buy the argument that we should accept definitions "everyone" uses, even when they're, wrong, wrong, wrong.
-t - Aug 24, 2011 1:13:56 pm PDT #22030 of 30001
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Why is using "two" to mean "half" okay?
It might have been inflammable and combustible. That would make more sense.
To be fair to the rise of "flammable", I have seen "inhabitable" used to mean "not habitable" in official documents and that is just confusing.