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this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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No Stupid Questions
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I was taught that the "bi" prefix was a multiplier and "semi" was a divider.
That meant biweekly, bimonthly, biannually were every 2 weeks, months, years and semi-weekly, semi-monthly, semi-annually were every half a week, half a month, and half a year.
Then the real world intruded and I've been confused ever since. About the only time I hear "semi" and "bi" used on a regular basis the way I expect is with pay periods. Biweekly is every two weeks and semi-monthly is twice a month.
Canada, by the way.
PS: I suppose bisexual and semi trailers also fit my expectations.
I never heard that semi meant 1/2. I've always thought of semi as rather vague tbh. Meaning that there is no set amount of time between things.
bi- means two, as in bicycle: two wheels (circles)
semi- means half, as in semicircle: half of a circle
The problem is that the prefixes can be parsed as affecting either duration/interval as in (bi-week)ly, every two weeks, or frequency as in bi-(weekly), two times weekly. The same applies to semi-.
Personally I find the frequency interpretation a bit of a stretch—"two" is not the same as "two times" or "twice"—so I would tend to read e.g. bimonthly as every two months rather than twice each month.
You can bisect a circle to make two semicircles!
But if it's semicircular...
bi-sect: cut into two parts; from Latin "bi-", two, and "secare", to cut.
The "sect" part is critical. "bi-" on its own doesn't imply division.
Heh, yeah, I'm just messing with people here 😆
(This language confusion is mildly amusing, in the apparent inherent ambiguity we've created)
I prefer the opposite system. If someone said to me: we will meet two weekly, it seems closer to “twice weekly” than once every two weeks. Where as semi weekly saying “half weekly” makes it sound like one half of the weeks we meet and the other half we don’t. I have no idea how anyone thinks that meaning semi-weekly means twice weekly. Even the “we meet every half week” makes little sense to me syntax-wise.
You're essentially assuming the conclusion by grouping it like that. There are three parts to "biweekly", "bi-", "week", and "-ly". "Once per biweek", i.e. once per 14 days (or per fortnight), makes at least as much sense as "two" × "weekly".
Meeting semiweekly (semiweek-ly, if you must hyphenate it) means meeting every semiweek, or every half-week (3.5 days). Which is an odd internal to meet at if taken literally but would result in meeting twice each week. "Semiannually" is a more common example, and I've never seen or heard it used to refer to anything but a 6-month (half-year) interval.