English isnt English!

[mikewint]

As to Biennial there is zero confusion and no debate, it is, with no debate, every TWO years.
The problem is, as I originally posted, the ambiguity in the English usage of the prefix BI- which can, depending on contextual clues, mean either twice or two.
A BIcentenial occurs every TWO centuries. A BIplane has TWO wings. Therefore by extension a BIannual meeting occurs every TWO years.
On the other hand:
BI- can also mean TWICE. A BIconvex lens is doubly convex. Taking that tack, BIannual means TWICE each year.
The point of all this being the ambiguity of the language and the ambiguous usage of BI-, i.e.: to mean two or twice
With our feet firmly planted in midair-
Biweekly means once every two weeks or twice a week.
Bimonthly means once every two months or twice a month.

Enter the unambiguous prefix SEMI- or the Greek prefix DI- used scientifically, as in DIoxide meaning TWO oxygen atoms.
Semiweekly means twice a week. With zero confusion
Semimonthly means twice a month. With zero confusion

 

[pbehn]

Biweekly means once every two weeks or twice a week.
Bimonthly means once every two months or twice a month.

Bi refers to two, it can be two months or two times in a month. I used to hear both in meetings and bi weekly meant the same as bi monthly. Nothing we ever did happened every two months so there never was any confusion. The meaning of a word in English is what it is commonly understood to mean, the meaning of words can change in some cases they have completely reversed.

 

[mikewint]

Grammatical gender has very little to do with social or biological gender

The confusion is/was mine as GENDER, in my head, was firmly linked with the biological meaning. The GIRL - IT made zero sense to me any more than the FLOOR - HE and the WALL - SHE.
Further thought/reflection made me realize that the term GENDER derived from the Latin GENUS meaning KIND and had nothing whatever to do with biological sex. Much as in Physics where Quarks demonstrated properties for which there were no man-sized world equivalents so Physicists simply appropriated already existent man-sized properties. Thus Quarks come in six FLAVORS: up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top. The actual physical property has nothing to do with the words.
Many authors are recommending dropping the word Gender and using a more realistic term "Noun-Class" as being more descriptive. So (German) FLOOR - BODEN is in a Noun-Class requiring DER while WALL - WAND is in a different class requiring DIE and GIRL - MADCHEN in a third class requiring DAS.
It's still a matter of memorization but it does remove the GENDER - SEX

 

[mikewint]

The meaning of a word in English is what it is commonly understood to mean,

The problem is still one of ambiguity. What a word is COMMONLY understood to mean changes depending...
Take WICKED. It is certainly used to describe evil as in the WICKED WITCH. Yet I've heard it used to describe something that is really good as in "That cake was WICKEDLY good."
SUGAR - Yea the sweet white stuff but people also say "Give me some SUGAR" to mean affection or a kiss
PASTY - You can have a PASTY (white/pale) face. Certain types of female dancers wear adhesive PASTYs to cover certain anatomical parts and then there is the Meat and Vegetable hand pie PASTY.
DRESSING - as in what kind of DRESSING do you want on your salad or the DRESSING you fill a Thanksgiving Turkey with.
FIX - You can certainly FIX something that's broken but down here you commonly hear "I'm FIXin to leave"
DOPE - this one is all over the place meaning DRUGS, slang for OUTSTANDING/COOL, types of GRAVY, and even ICE CREAM toppings, the DOPE coating applied to aircraft fabric coverings, insider information "What's the inside DOPE on the race"
POP - your FATHER, A type of MUSIC, and SOFT DRINKS
CARRIAGE - the way you hold your BODY, a HORSE-DRAWN VEHICLE, and strangely in the North-East a SHOPPING CART!

I could go on but the key here is exactly what you posted, i.e. "nothing we ever did happened every two months". Thus zero confusion be it BI- or SEMI-

 

[The Basket]

One must remember English was a spoken language and most of its history was spoken by people who could neither read or write. It was the first dictionaries who advised spelling. Some letters have even left the alphabet over the years. So language is a living thing. Not some chained tool of the Latin teachers.

Language is like a river flowing its way to the sea. Not to be stuck behind dams as a testament to false ideals.

One aspect of English is the fact so many countries speak it. This adds new words and slang to the pot and the Internet can broadcast it to the masses. So even Australian words have become part of the lexicon. Ripper!

When I was a young person, I was watching Knight Rider and A-Team so got plenty American slang while today a young child can still overdose on American shows at the loss of their British heritage.

Its pronounced Zed. Not Zee. I am expert on English language coz I'm English!

 

[pbehn]

In my lifetime the meaning of the word "gay" has changed many times. Latterly in the UK it has meant something that doesn't work or function. This upset the homosexual and lesbian "communities" who had adopted it for their use. For my daughter who just lives in a "community" where people are what they want to be the idea of a "gay community" is very odd indeed so when her computer goes haywire it is being gay and her friends don't have a label to live up or down to.

 

[mikewint]

Exactly my primary point AMBIGUITY.
We have BIcameral - TWO chambers BIcycle - TWO heels BIplane - TWO wings BIlingual - TWO languages spoken BIgamist - TWO wives/Husbands
BInary - TWO digits BIped - TWO legs BIsect - cut in TWO pieces BIfurcate - divide into TWO branches BIceps - TWO headed muscle
BIcuspid - TWO pointed tooth BInocular - using TWO eyes BInomial - Equation with TWO terms BIpolar - having TWO poles

And I could list many more. Suddenly we attach BI- to the root annual (or other time terms like WEEK or MONTH) and say that it means TWICE and not TWO. Confusing to say the very least!

 

[swampyankee]

Semiweekly (every other week) and biweekly (either twice a week or every two weeks) is a chronic confusion. I simply use "every other week" or "twice per week."

In any case, English is fun in so many ways.

• It's got irregular spelling, which is fine (so does French or, indeed, any language that's been written in the same alphabet for a long time. Turkish has very regular spelling because it's only been written in the Roman alphabet for about a century).
• It's got a lot of vowel sounds (up to 20, depending on dialect, but usually linguists count 14)
• It's got a bunch of regular and irregular verbs (so do all the other Germanic languages and the Romance languages)
• It's got a lot of words (the OED estimates about 220,000 base forms, that is bee and bees would count once, as would walk, walks, and walked)
• It has the habit of following other languages down alleys, where it will mug them for new words to add to its collection.
• It has a history of pundits trying to shoehorn Latin limits on its syntax. You can't split an infinitive in Latin, as something like "to go" is word (it's also one word in French: aller).

A few decades ago, people thought that radio and TV would get rid of regionalisms and regional accents.

Nope; that hasn't happened. I still wear sneakers, not trainers or tennis shoes, drink soda, not pop, walk on the sidewalk, not the pavement, park my car in a parking lot, not a car park, get confused at roundabouts, not traffic circles, and the little creatures that look like this are pill bugs, not rolly-polies.

 

[mikewint]

are pill bugs,

Around here they're either Potato or Tomato bugs though I've always known them as SOW Bugs or Doodle Bugs
Weird little critters. #1 They are NOT bugs or insects. They're CRUSTACEANS closely related to Shrimp/Lobsters. #2 They, like their relatives breath through GILLS though weirdly they can't live under the water. #3 Speaking of water they DON'T Pee and they drink water with their anus (the uropods you see sticking out)
#3 They eat their own poop along with several heavy metals in the soil like copper, lead, arsenic, cadmium, zinc. #4 like Spock they use copper instead of iron in their blood to carry oxygen so like Spock their blood is blue

 

[swampyankee]

A

Around here they're either Potato or Tomato bugs though I've always known them as SOW Bugs or Doodle Bugs
Weird little critters. #1 They are NOT bugs or insects. They're CRUSTACEANS closely related to Shrimp/Lobsters. #2 They, like their relatives breath through GILLS though weirdly they can't live under the water. #3 Speaking of water they DON'T Pee and they drink water with their anus (the uropods you see sticking out)
#3 They eat their own poop along with several heavy metals in the soil like copper, lead, arsenic, cadmium, zinc. #4 like Spock they use copper instead of iron in their blood to carry oxygen so like Spock their blood is blue

A marine relative, Cymothoa is the tongue-eating parasite.

 

[Marcel]

The most populous English speaking county is USA followed by India!

Language is often considered a nationalism yardstick. So English being popular is no longer an English or British thing but universal.

So England has lost the aspect of control of its own language.

And they moan about cultural appropriation!

I don't know, I don't speak a word of the language....

 

[pbehn]

Ghost is spelt with an "h" because William Caxton, the first person to print a dictionary in English, learned about printing in the Netherlands.

 

[Marcel]

Ghost is spelt with an "h" because William Caxton, the first person to print a dictionary in English, learned about printing in the Netherlands.

So he added the 'H' of Holland?

 

[pbehn]

So he added the 'H' of Holland?

No, spelling with an "H" is from a Flemmish root, it is completely unknown in England before Caxton published it. Much of English was influenced by Caxtons translations, if he didn't know what a French word was in English he left the word in French.

 

[MiTasol]

Its pronounced Zed. Not Zee. I am expert on English language coz I'm English!

So you go to New Zedaland for your holidays and call nothing zedero?

 

[MiTasol]

George Bernard Shaw wrote in a book I enjoyed being forced to read at school in the 50's that the correct English spelling of fish is ghot
GH is the F sound in enough
O is the I sound in women
T is the SH sound in station.

Why is it that when you say a woman looks heavenly she preens but when you say she looks like nothing on earth she gets highly offended?

 

[GrauGeist]

The old High-German word for Ghost was Gheist, by the way...

 

[fubar57]

 

[special ed]

Re Mikewint post48, they have been called doodle bugs in south Louisiana since I was small but also Tiny Turd Tumblers because of their affinity for dog feces.

 

[special ed]

Don't forget gaol and jail .