Spatial references applied to time

On 4-Jun-2007, at 11:22, Gregory Sigman wrote:
> clockwise and counterclockwise

You mean, of course sunwise (or turnwise :) and widdershins!

But seriously, moving UP a date I think means moving it closer to the
present in time. When someone "moves up the release" of a movie or a
book, that means it's coming out sooner than originally planned. If
you are planning on having a meeting on Wednesday you can "push it
back two days" or "move it up two days" and those mean Friday and
Monday, respectively.

"next __day" is the first __day in the NEXT week. So if it is
Friday, "I'll meet you next Thursday" and "I'll meet you Thursday"
are the same. If it is Wednesday, they are a week apart, but in that
case the person should say "I will meet you THIS Thursday" or
"tomorrow". Sunday's and Mondays are problematic because many
people, despite their calendars, think of the week as running Monday-
Sunday, so "next Sunday" means the 19th if today is the 10th. But if
today is the 6th, then is next Sunday the 12th or the 19th? That's a
tough one.

In my somewhat limited observation, the break-point on confusion
seems to be 10 days. If the 'next' is less than 10 days away,
everyone is pretty clear on which day is meant. If it's 11 or more
days away, you really better clarify with, "how about Sunday the
19th?" or "how about a week from Sunday?" (And yes, that means a week
after the closest FUTURE Sunday).

Similarly, if today is Friday, "Last Wednesday" means the Wednesday
of last week. For the Wednesday in the current week, simple past
tense will suffice. "I met with Larry last Wednesday" means on the
1st if today is the 10th while "I met with Larry on Wednesday" means
on the 8th.

I prefer the British usage here because I think it is clearer; "I'll
meet you Thursday next" really clarifies that it is the Thursday next
week.

Apropos of nothing, a friend of mine I talk with quite a bit and I
are the only two Americans I know who use 'fortnight' on a regular
basis. Stunningly useful word, and I have no idea why it's not used
in the US, especially when so many things are quite naturally divided
up into fortnight-long periods.

Now, my favorite: bimonthly means both twice a month and every two
months. As far as I've ever gleaned there is simply no possible way
of knowing which use is meant other than asking. Odd though, because
when I worked in publishing bimonthly ONLY meant every two months.
Bi-weekly seems to be pretty solidly in the two week camp (further
confusing why bimonthly is ever used for it), and for annual events
we have biannual (twice a year) and biennial (two years). It's left
to bimonthly to be the black-sheep.

Google Kreme wrote:
> Now, my favorite: bimonthly means both twice a month and every two
> months. As far as I've ever gleaned there is simply no possible way
> of knowing which use is meant other than asking. Odd though, because
> when I worked in publishing bimonthly ONLY meant every two months.

Gee, around here is it happens once every two months it's "bi-monthly"
and twice a month is "semi-monthly". I can't even imagine using
bi-monthly for twice a month!

>Apropos of nothing, a friend of mine I talk with quite a bit and I
>are the only two Americans I know who use 'fortnight' on a regular
>basis. Stunningly useful word, and I have no idea why it's not used
>in the US, especially when so many things are quite naturally divided
>up into fortnight-long periods.

You don't say! I've been trying for the last five years to get
'fortnight' into common usage in my little neck of the woods over
here, with predictably little success. It's very nice to hear of
fellow Americans also enthusiastic about the usefulness of this
simple little word.

--
Greg Sigman, Senior Library Associate
Ohio University Music/Dance Library
sigmanohio.edu

on 6/7/07 10:34 am, Google Kreme at gkremegmail.com wrote:

> Now, my favorite: bimonthly means both twice a month and every two
> months. As far as I've ever gleaned there is simply no possible way
> of knowing which use is meant other than asking. Odd though, because
> when I worked in publishing bimonthly ONLY meant every two months.
> Bi-weekly seems to be pretty solidly in the two week camp (further
> confusing why bimonthly is ever used for it), and for annual events
> we have biannual (twice a year) and biennial (two years). It's left
> to bimonthly to be the black-sheep.

This is a usage error that has become the standard. Properly, twice a month
should be semi-monthly, and twice a year should be semiannually. 'Bi-' means
double (i.e. every two) and 'semi-' means half (i.e. twice in a period).
'Bi-' should never be used to mean twice in a period. But nobody uses the
'semi-' terms anymore, much to the detriment of unambiguity in language
usage.

Mark D. McKean
qpandaquantumpanda.com

On 8/6/2007 2:34 AM, "Google Kreme" <gkremegmail.com> spake thus:

> Bi-weekly seems to be pretty solidly in the two week camp

"Fortnightly" perhaps? :) Actually, now that I think about it, I know I've
heard that used here in NZ. Not commonly though.

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
http://xri.net/=nigel.stanger

On 8/6/2007 1:49 AM, "David Ross" <drdavidrossconsultant.com> spake thus:

> How many folks actually "dial" a phone these days?

I generally talk about "ringing" a number rather than "dialing" one. There
can't be that many phones around now with actual dials (there may still be a
few out in the boonies here).

I always thought however that "dial a prayer" was preferable to "punch a
prayer" :)

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
http://xri.net/=nigel.stanger

At 6:19 PM -0700 6/8/07, Nigel Stanger wrote:
>On 8/6/2007 1:49 AM, "David Ross" spake thus:
>
>> How many folks actually "dial" a phone these days?
>
>I generally talk about "ringing" a number rather than "dialing" one.

        I haven't heard a phone "ring" in quite some time too. They beep,
and buzz and play all sorts of catchy tunes, but a ring?


--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://xri.net/=j-beda> *
* Johann's MostlyMac Computer Consulting - <http://mmcc.beda.ca/> *

On 8-Jun-2007, at 19:19, Mark D. McKean wrote:
> on 6/7/07 10:34 am, Google Kreme at gkremegmail.com wrote:
>> Now, my favorite: bimonthly means both twice a month and every two
>> months. As far as I've ever gleaned there is simply no possible way
>> of knowing which use is meant other than asking. Odd though, because
>> when I worked in publishing bimonthly ONLY meant every two months.
>> Bi-weekly seems to be pretty solidly in the two week camp (further
>> confusing why bimonthly is ever used for it), and for annual events
>> we have biannual (twice a year) and biennial (two years). It's left
>> to bimonthly to be the black-sheep.
>
> This is a usage error that has become the standard.

Oh no, it's not a usage error. check any dictionary, it properly
means both 'twice a month' and 'every two months'. I've checked both
the American Heritage and the Oxford English and that is, and has
been, the case for a long time. In fact, you need to go back about
100 years before 'twice a month' does not occur as a definition for
'bimonthly' and the word 'biannual' doesn't even exist. In no way,
shape, or form is bimonthly meaning twice a month incorrect, and
biannual NEVER means 'every two years'.

> Properly, twice a month should be semi-monthly, and twice a year
> should be semiannually. 'Bi-' means double (i.e. every two)

Bifurcate means to cleave in half. Biannual means twice a year, and
only twice a year. Biennial, as I said in my original post, means
every two years.

> 'Bi-' should never be used to mean twice in a period.

Sorry, but that is plain wrong.

On Jun 8, 2007, at 6:19 PM, Gregory Sigman wrote:

> You don't say! I've been trying for the last five years to get
> 'fortnight' into common usage in my little neck of the woods over
> here, with predictably little success. It's very nice to hear of
> fellow Americans also enthusiastic about the usefulness of this
> simple little word.

Sometime in the late 1950s, a rocket scientist (I think, rather than
engineer) at JPL, disgusted with the variety of measurement units he
had to convert among, wrote a formal report in the stone, furlong,
fortnight system.

Tidbit (lower case) from Google: the speed of light = 1.8026175 ×
10^12 furlongs per fortnight
(search for speed of light in furlongs per fortnight--I never cease
to be amazed at what the Google query parser manages to do).

     --John

I always thought that bimonthly means every two months, to use
bimonthly to mean twice a month is simply wrong. But then I cringe
whenever I hear some "newsman" on the TV say irregardless, and I
bemoan that fact that flammable has come to replace inflammable
because Americans assume the "in" at the beginning of inflammable
means not, but on the other hand, no one thinks inflame means to put
out the fire. However, I understand that this change had to be made
for safety reasons, too many accidents caused by people smoking
around inflammable fluids.

___________________________________________________
Michael Logue The Grateful Union
http://www.earthguild.com/ Earth Guild: Tools Materials Books
mloguemadison.main.nc.us

On 11-Jun-2007, at 23:27, Johann Beda wrote:
> At 6:19 PM -0700 6/8/07, Nigel Stanger wrote:
>> On 8/6/2007 1:49 AM, "David Ross" spake thus:
>>
>>> How many folks actually "dial" a phone these days?
>>
>> I generally talk about "ringing" a number rather than "dialing" one.
>
> I haven't heard a phone "ring" in quite some time too. They beep,
> and buzz and play all sorts of catchy tunes, but a ring?

My cellphone routinely freaks people out because it does, in fact,
'ring'. A good ol' fashioned 57lb Bell telephone (any color you
wanted, as long as it was black) with two big bells and a hammer.
OK, it's an mp3, but it sure does sound convincing enough (and loud
enough) to turn heads.

It's lovely :)

All of the above is very interesting, but try the confusion generated by "today" and "tomorrow" in a 24-hour-a-day operation. Working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, you are never quite sure if the meeting announced by day shift for 9 a.m. "tomorrow" means you have to stick around for a few extra hours "today", or wait another 24 hours, depending on who announced the meeting.

All it took to get explicit dates was to show up at a meeting with "the suits" dressed in work clothes. When pulled aside by a kindly upper manager to explain that my dress was improper given "yesterday's" notice, I pointed out his yesterday was my "today", and I did not have time to run home and get a change of clothes. Thereafter, meetings were given explicit dates and usually two day-shift days in advance.

On Jun 12, 2007, at 4:53 AM, Google Kreme wrote:

> In no way,
> shape, or form is bimonthly meaning twice a month incorrect, and
> biannual NEVER means 'every two years'.

And, indeed, there is a word which *does* mean every other year:
biennial.
Ignore the oddity of the i and e being in different syllables. Also
quadrennial for every four years; triennial every three years.

Confusingly--but that's nothing new for English, biennial also means
lasting two years--applied to plants in particular.

The bimonthly thing makes as much sense as "flammable" and
"imflammable" having essentially the same meaning.

   --John the Perennially Confused

On Jun 12, 2007, at 5:10 AM, lenerta wrote:

> All of the above is very interesting, but try the confusion
> generated by "today" and "tomorrow" in a 24-hour-a-day operation.
> Working the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, you are never quite sure if
> the meeting announced by day shift for 9 a.m. "tomorrow" means you
> have to stick around for a few extra hours "today", or wait another
> 24 hours, depending on who announced the meeting.

I try not to use "today," "tomorrow," or even "Thursday" in work-
related email. Sometimes, I'll say "today (Tuesday, 2007-06-12)."
Where the date form is the convention we've agreed on--in non-work
email I use a more "expected" date form, intra-US. There is too much
chance that email won't be seen timeously*. In IM, on the other
hand, I'll say "today"--barring a cross-midnight time zone difference.

During my time in San Diego, the city changed the date of the
official (if usually low key) celebration of the arrival of the first
US Navy vessel in the harbor. The problem was that the ship dropped
anchor in the afternoon, and the Navy was still changing the date at
noon. So the shore people and the ship viewed the arrival as
happening on different days. (And no, I don't remember which
direction the change to the celebration was.) Why change the date at
noon? I think it was because at sea (before chronometer) one had a
decent chance of measuring (local) noon, while midnight was 24 turns
of the sand glass after the prior noon, which isn't exactly accurate.

* timeously: a perfectly good word--from our friends the Scots--
meaning something like "in a timely manner". As I learned (or
learnt) in around 1972 when I edited it out of a document written by
a co-worker--our Scot by way of Rhodesia and South Africa--a good
friend of our Englishman by way of South Africa and Rhodesia and
South Africa (they had met in Rhodesia).

   --John

I had not previously heard this use of bimonthly and would have thought it quite wrong. However, Webster's New World Dictionary states "[Now Rare] twice a month: in this sense, semimonthly is the preferred term."

On 13/6/2007 12:10 AM, "Google Kreme" <gkremegmail.com> spake thus:

> My cellphone routinely freaks people out because it does, in fact,
> 'ring'. A good ol' fashioned 57lb Bell telephone (any color you
> wanted, as long as it was black) with two big bells and a hammer.

You've got me beat, mine just uses the MIDI "phone ring" sound, which is
good, but can in no way compete with the sound of real metal things banging
together :) (Alas, my phone isn't quite new enough to support MP3 et al.)

--
Nigel Stanger, Dunedin, NEW ZEALAND.
http://xri.net/=nigel.stanger

Nigel Stanger <nstangerinfoscience.otago.ac.nz> thoughtfully
chiseled into marble the following words:

>On 13/6/2007 12:10 AM, "Google Kreme" <gkremegmail.com> spake thus:
>
>> My cellphone routinely freaks people out because it does, in fact,
>> 'ring'. A good ol' fashioned 57lb Bell telephone (any color you
>> wanted, as long as it was black) with two big bells and a hammer.
>
>You've got me beat, mine just uses the MIDI "phone ring" sound, which is
>good, but can in no way compete with the sound of real metal things banging
>together :) (Alas, my phone isn't quite new enough to support MP3 et al..)

 From a human interface standpoint (and isn't that one of the
strengths of the Macintosh way?), I think it's a very good thing for
a ringing phone to sound like a ringing phone. It should at least
have a distinctive sound that is not used in another context. Most of
us on this list immediately and instinctively know there's an
incoming phone call when we hear that good ol' jangle referenced by
Mr. Kreme above. Accurate and immediate recognition of what is
arguably the most important element of your device is good interface
design, right?

What sound children of the digital age associate with an incoming
call, I really couldn't say. I suspect any little clip of popular
music sampled at a very low resolution and blared through a half-inch
speaker would trigger (at least subconsciously) a "someone better
answer that phone" sort of message to flash across the brain. But
then there will be some conscious cognitive effort required to grok
the true source and nature of the sound. Poor interface design, right?

Anyway, get yourself one of these babies to go with your classic Bell
telephone ring:
<http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8928/>

'cause nothing beats speaking into a genuine, solid, handset. It has
the added advantage of communicating to anyone who sees you talking
that you are on the phone and not just speaking to the voices in your
head. Is having the smallest, least visible bluetooth headset
*really* the best option?

Greg Sigman

At 9:41 AM -0700 6/12/07, johnbaxterlistsmac.com wrote:
>On Jun 12, 2007, at 4:53 AM, Google Kreme wrote:
>>In no way,
>>shape, or form is bimonthly meaning twice a month incorrect, and
>>biannual NEVER means 'every two years'.
>
>And, indeed, there is a word which *does* mean every other year:
>biennial.

Well, Merriam-Webster says that the the primary definition of
biannual is to occur twice a year, but the secondary definition is to
occur every two years.

<http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/biannual>

Just like bimonthly.

--
=Alex Hoffman
Leadership, Policy & Politics
Teachers College, Columbia University

On Jun 12, 2007, at 7:53 AM, Google Kreme wrote:

> On 8-Jun-2007, at 19:19, Mark D. McKean wrote:
>> on 6/7/07 10:34 am, Google Kreme at gkremegmail.com wrote:
>>> Now, my favorite: bimonthly means both twice a month and every two
>>> months. As far as I've ever gleaned there is simply no possible way
>>> of knowing which use is meant other than asking. Odd though, because
>>> when I worked in publishing bimonthly ONLY meant every two months.
>>> Bi-weekly seems to be pretty solidly in the two week camp (further
>>> confusing why bimonthly is ever used for it), and for annual events
>>> we have biannual (twice a year) and biennial (two years). It's left
>>> to bimonthly to be the black-sheep.
>>
>> This is a usage error that has become the standard.
>
> Oh no, it's not a usage error. check any dictionary, it properly
> means both 'twice a month' and 'every two months'. I've checked both
> the American Heritage and the Oxford English and that is, and has
> been, the case for a long time. In fact, you need to go back about
> 100 years before 'twice a month' does not occur as a definition for
> 'bimonthly' and the word 'biannual' doesn't even exist. In no way,
> shape, or form is bimonthly meaning twice a month incorrect, and
> biannual NEVER means 'every two years'.
>
>> Properly, twice a month should be semi-monthly, and twice a year
>> should be semiannually. 'Bi-' means double (i.e. every two)

Having worked for a few years for a magazine that was published every
other month, the industry parlance in advertising and publishing for
this is semi-monthly, etc. Bi is used to refer to twice.

Marilyn

On 14-Jun-2007, at 07:32, Alexander Hoffman wrote:
> At 9:41 AM -0700 6/12/07, johnbaxterlistsmac.com wrote:
>> On Jun 12, 2007, at 4:53 AM, Google Kreme wrote:
>>> In no way,
>>> shape, or form is bimonthly meaning twice a month incorrect, and
>>> biannual NEVER means 'every two years'.
>>
>> And, indeed, there is a word which *does* mean every other year:
>> biennial.
>
> Well, Merriam-Webster says that the the primary definition of
> biannual is to occur twice a year, but the secondary definition is to
> occur every two years.

Not the first (or last) time that m-w has been flat out wrong. It's
a hideously bad dictionary. Try the OED, the CODE9, the AH3, or
something that it as least marginally respectable.


[OK, this thread is spiraling out of control - let's shut it down unless there's an interesting point about language to be made, rather than more back and forth about particular words. -Adam]