The Most Useless Words in the English Language!

Welcome to Wisdom Wednesday.

In today’s newsletter, I want to discuss what I think are the 2 most useless words in the English language - biweekly and bimonthly.

Let’s look at an example:

How often is Biweekly?

The prefix bi- can mean ‘once every two’ or ‘two times’. Therefore, biweekly is used to describe not only something, such as a newsletter, that is published two times (twice) in one week but also once every two weeks.

Biweekly and Bimonthly

Taking this idea further, a newspaper or a newsletter that is published every two weeks may be correctly described both as biweekly (once every two weeks) and bimonthly (two times every month). However, depending on which term is used, the reader might interpret the newsletter as being published twice a week or once every two months. 🤔

Biannual and Biennual

The situation is clearer with biannual and biennial but even native speakers can confuse these two terms.

• Biannual - occurring two times a year or every six months - also semi-annual

• Biennial - occurring one time every two years

A magazine published in January and July is biannual (twice a year).

A conference that is held every two years is biennial. In botany, many plants are biennial with a life cycle spread over two years.

Useful Adverbs of Frequency

While I tend not to use ‘biweekly’ and ‘bimonthly’ to avoid confusion, let’s take a look at some adverbs of frequency that are frequently used in Business English:

• Daily - something that occurs every day - ‘We check our daily stock levels at 5 pm’

• Weekly - something that occurs every week - ‘We have our weekly department meetings on Friday mornings’

• Monthly - something that occurs monthly - ‘Monthly sales figures have been increasing in 2024’

• Quarterly - something that occurs every 3 months - particularly important in the financial markets - ‘Quarterly forecasts are important for assessing the value of a company’

• Annual - something that occurs every year - ‘Our annual results are published on the 20th of January every year’

Conclusion

If an adverb of frequency is ambiguous it is best not to use or be specific to remove the ambiguity. For instance:

Word of the Day - Forecast

Forecast - noun - a statement of what is judged likely to happen in the future, especially in economic terms or expected weather conditions

Forecast - verb - to say what you expect to happen in the future

Do you have any Business English questions?

Please email me and I will do my best to answer them in future newsletters.

Until Friday - have a great day!

Iain.

www.communicateenglish.com

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