xkcd #3232: Countdown Standard

Title text:

Anyone who is caught counting 'three ... two ... one ... zero ... GO!' will be punished with a lifetime of eating only ISO standard food samples.

Transcript:

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3232/

explainxkcd for #3232

Anyone who is caught counting 'three ... two ... one ... zero ... GO!' will be punished with a lifetime of eating only ISO standard food samples.
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[–] 82 points 7 months ago (14 children)

Biweekly is another one. Two times a week, or once every two weeks (also called a fortnight)?

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  • [–] 49 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    This is one of those ones that's a tragedy. Biweekly "should" always mean every two weeks. Twice a week is "semi-weekly", aka every half a week.

    But regardless of what it "should" mean, people use it wrong often enough that you have to check every time, not because the word is ambiguous, but because people are often mistaken.

    It's a shame, but it's part of human communication 😅

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  • [–] 9 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    There's also semi monthly, which is two times a month, as opposed to every two weeks, which is what biweekly is

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  • [–] 19 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Semi monthly results in 24 events per year while biweekly events happen 26 times

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Fortnightly already exists as a term though, why would biweekly mean the same thing?

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