So Mary calls tonight asking me (the Grammar Nazi) a question about the English language, in an attempt to solve a disagreement she was having with friends. Does “bi-weekly” mean once every two weeks…or does it mean two times in one week? I know what I think, and tell her, but I look it up on-line, where I find that I am right…and also wrong! Or rather, to think of it the other way is *also* right. Basically, “bi-weekly,” according to on-line dictionaries, as well as the HUGE Webster’s Russ and I took off the bookshelf, means BOTH once every two weeks AND two times in one week.
Now, here’s my question: when you have a word where the definition means one thing and ALSO means something that is basically completely opposite, what in the world is the use of that word? You can’t use it to *communicate.* Using it will only *confuse.* So why have this word at all?
In fact, Russ has a book, New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, which is “The acknowledged authority on English usage” which basically advises you not to use the word “bi-weekly” at all, since the meaning will not be clear.
I repeat: why even have a word like that?
In other news: what is “inflammable”? Does it mean something is “flammable,” easy to catch on fire? Or does it mean something will NOT easily catch on fire? After all, “incorrect” means something that is NOT correct and “inconvenient” means something is NOT convenient. Well, as a matter of fact, inflammable is the exact SAME as flammable.
Problem is, when people used to see the word “inflammable” they used logic to make an assumption that it would follow the existing meaning of the pre-fix “in,” and therefore something INflammable would be NOT flammable. And therefore, when they saw the word INflammable, they did not take caution, since they thought it meant fire was not possible or likely (though, in fact, it meant fire WAS most possible and likely). So, somewhere along the line, people who were concerned about safety just started shortening inflammable to flammable, in order to be sure that this very important message was getting through properly.
One morething: contrary to the little ditty we used to sing as children, “ain’t” IS in the dictionary.
