Jingsamichty

Bi-weekly or bi-monthly... twice a week, every two weeks, twice a month, every other month..?

If I'm invited to a bi-monthly meetng, I'll expect to go 6 times a year. Colleague insists it's 24 times. I say that's semi-monthly, not bi-monthly... almost bi-weekly. Curiously, he agrees that bi-weekly means every two weeks.

What this country needs is a fortnight.

Piff Poff

Hear hear, I second that motion!

MillieF

Jings, I'm with you in spades. It s MOST confusing. I thought I had got I all worked out withth bloody French, and now I'm back to square one! The other thing that drives me nuts (apologies, there is probably a list of 'em) is that nobody knows the idea of 'double' ...as in my phone number ends in "double 7"... So they all take a great gulp and say...So the number is... 77....is this concept SO hard?

misskatpaw

Ha, I was just explaining to a Canadian friend how annoying that is! My phone number has two doubles in it. Had I known this would have become a little irksome when I got to choose my number, i'd have been happy with the most random set of numbers possible!

Novocastrian

Hah! I'm still trying to get used to telling folk your phone number in France.

There it's in two's. Here it's area code them 3 followed by 4.

And what's with that quatre-vingt-dix-sept crap?

Edit: And why are there 15 days in a fortnight?

MillieF

The counting in French is bloody bizzare....I have a sneaky need to take my shoes and socks off so I can use my toes for all those extra digits. The Québécois I believe have a 'better' system? I just sort of got so used to it though...I do so miss the difficult sods!

But at least it's a foreign language! Here we are 'meant' to all be on the same song sheet, and they can't cope with a double number.

Are you telling me that they don't know what a fortnight is in Canada? I've never tried 'em with it, and I can't ask my husband...we've been together too long, I've bent the poor man to my linguistic will!

PeterF

When I say I\ll be there at half six, I get blank looks.

cheeky_monkey

ditto or quarter past/to..maybe it should be bi-hours?

dbd33

In Switzerland they use septante, huitante, nonante which simplifies things a bit. I haven't heard anyone count in Quebec French for yonks but it seems to me that they have two of those expressions but not the third, maybe they go septant, huitant, quatre-vingt-dix? It doesn't matter because everyone in Quebec who can count to high numbers speaks English anyway.

BristolUK

Why blank looks? Half six is 3...why aren't they ready for you three and a half hours early?

Novocastrian

Just to make things muddier, half six (halb sechs) in German means 5:30.

Novocastrian

Zoe Bell

That fact is probably the only thingI remember fro my high school german classes

they see it as half to, not half past

Shard

No wonder they never have time for a tea break.

Jingsamichty

I know that many elderly people in the east of Scotland swear by that convention too. My late grandad would insist that "half-six" was half past five.