> > But FORTNIGHT??? "Fortnight" is not used in American English? Are you guys serious? What do you call half a month, then?
>
> "Half a month," if we mean half a month; "two weeks" if we mean two weeks. American English is so much more precise that way. ;-)
>
> > Or don't you call it anything? I never even imagined this word wasn't standard English everywhere.

I would like to see "fortnight" revived in American English if only to avoid the confusion of "bimonthly" and "semimonthly" - why is it that everyone seems to think they are interchangeable? "Fortnightly" would be far clearer, if anyone would bother to look it up.

> A great deal of Americans know what it means but don't use the word. I wouldn't have thought so many know it, though, that condescending book publishers would be comfortable not changing the word for an American edition of an English book. But I guess they are.

My first encounter with the word, IIRC, was in an American edition of Anne of Green Gables - so there is hope yet. :-)

-Fob"should use the word more often; it's a nice one"ulis