Talk:Fortnight/Archive 1

Blocking Users
Apparently you can block users on Wikis with Fortnights as a time limit. See here for an example. Scroll down to near the bottom.--Eloc 09:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Unusual usages
I've removed this section.
 * The fortnight is the base unit of time in the FFF (Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight) System of units.
 * This remains minus the spelling out of "FFF".


 * It can sometimes be used to describe a unit of time equal to five months in some Dickensian literature.
 * This too remains but should prehaps be removed for lack of citation.


 * In the VMS operating system, some configuration parameters are specified in microfortnights (one millionth of a fortnight, or 1.2096 seconds).
 * This is dealt with at FFF System.


 * Millifortnights (about 20 minutes) and nanofortnights (1.2096 milliseconds) have also been used occasionally in computer science, usually in an attempt to be deliberately over-complex and obscure. The aim is generally to slow users down, allowing them to set parameters only after some thought.
 * as above


 * One attoparsec per microfortnight is approximately 1.00432766 inches per second.
 * There'll be many strange & unusual units involving the fortnight. I don't see how this one is notable.  If anyone should want a conversion, it can easily be derived.


 * The speed unit of one furlong per fortnight is a barely noticeable 0.166 millimetres per second, or roughly 1 centimetre per minute.
 * This also dealt with at FFF System.

Jɪmp 01:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Arabic
Can we get a transliteration of the arabic phrase? --82.143.195.118 (talk) 12:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I have given better explanation of the Arabic term. Please check! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Libyansamarkand (talk • contribs) 13:06, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Welsh
In Welsh the term pythefnos, meaning "fifteen nights", is used instead. This is in keeping with the Welsh term for a week, which is wythnos ("eight nights") - errr 8+8=16 not 15??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.240.29.194 (talk) 16:02, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

3 nights = 2 days 24.233.229.195 (talk) 05:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * N|D|N|D|N|

Greek
The word given is not 14 days. Greek wiktionary article says that (frankly, number 15 is the only thing I surely understand in that article). Vladislav.kuzkokov (talk) 09:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Dubious
The latest edit claims that the time between a full moon and a new moon or vice versa is equal to exactly 14.77 days. This doesn't seem even vaguely plausible. It may be close to 14.77 days but why exactly? Unless a ref can be found, the word "exactly" must go. J IM ptalk·cont 01:22, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a well established fact. Why doesn't it seem "vaguely plausible" to you? I added a ref in place of your tag. As to why exactly, the moon orbits the earth every 29.53 days, exactly. It's just gravity, it is not moody. --TimL (talk) 16:04, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Is that a typo or are you now saying that twice 14.77 is exactly 29.53? It doesn't seem vaguely plausible because I know of no physical mechanism tying the Earth's rotation to the Moon's orbit such that we'd end up with an exact ratio of 1477:50. (I could, however, think of a few that would make it vary.)  Thanks for the ref though but I'm afraid I don't have access to the book.  I wonder what they say exactly. J IM ptalk·cont 21:14, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I see your point now with the word "exactly". Would removing the word suffice? "Approximately" or "about" would suggest some ambiguity. The signifigant digits used represent the precision to which scientists can reliably measure the moons orbit, although I have not looked into how that is done. How about "precisely" suggesting a number with precision, not exactness? BTW the book simply says it orbits every 29.53 days. Because we have reached consensus on improper use of the word exactly I will go ahead and remove it, but I'd still appreciate your feedback.  --TimL (talk) 21:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Great. I wouldn't suggest we need any qualifier.  There was none in the source but but the readers know what's going on.  When we read a measured vlaue (such as "14.77") it's normal to assume errors (we'd take the value as "14.77±0.005").  Adding our own qualifier feels too much like original research to me. J IM ptalk·cont 23:14, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * As it turns out (which seems like it should have been obvious in retrospect!) that value is the arithmetic mean over a year. wolfram . --TimL (talk) 07:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Biweekly
Hey Biweekly redirects here, but Biweekly can mean either once every two weeks (i.e. fortnightly) or twice per week. Can it be changed so that this is not the case? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.128.2.68 (talk) 07:24, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Biweekly and fortnight, although they made have similar meanings are used so differently that they should not be combined. 35.0.105.138 (talk) 14:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary; stop adding translations
Wikipedia is not a dictionary or translation service. This article does not exist to provide translations of the term or concept of "two weeks" in every known language, or go into details about whether or not the idea is recognised in this language or that. If another-language Wikipedia has an article about the topic, then certainly add an interwiki link to it at page bottom, but please stop adding musings about 14-day periods in Welsh, Hebrew and Arabic. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 05:17, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess the request was not honored and there are over 15 languages in that section now. I find this section interesting and informative. -- AstroU (talk) 02:53, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Effective usage
That paragraph considering the payroll customs in United States should be deleted, as the article is about the term "fortnight" and not "whatever happens in a 2 weeks term". Furthermore the article clearly says that the term is uncommon in the US, so US traditions shouldn't play much of a roll anyways. -- 790 10:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this a bread roll or calling the roll? Surely you mean role? This is not just a rude comment - I bring it up as a good example of how we get variants and changes in language, which of course, is the underlying theme of this topic. Please feel free to delete it! DickyP (talk) 11:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Do not remove the paragraph considering the payroll customs in United States. I live in the United States and did not know what a Fortnight was. The paragraph helped me understand the difference about Fortnight,Bi-weekly etc.--72.154.244.183 (talk) 20:08, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Not archaic
I removed the part saying it's archaic. If it's used in the rest of the English speaking world (including England), then it's not archaic. Wdywtk (talk) 06:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * British measure of time, corresponding to a period of two weeks. Although in common use in UK, Americans have usually no idea what it is.

removed the above for US-bias. what about NZ, Aus, Canada, do they use it or not? -- Tarquin 19:42 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)


 * Well, VMS had its microfortnight, but otherwise it is pretty rare.  That said, lots of Americans certainly know what it means.   While sneering at Americans and our sloppy measurements, keep in mind that for many of us, semi-weekly and semi-monthly are synonyms.  In Spanish, "fortnight" is until 15 days and "in a week" is after 8 days.  Ortolan88

yup, in French, we say "quinze jours" for two weeks. "8 days" for a week is sometimes said in the UK; some French speakers say it too. -- Tarquin 20:31 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)


 * I'm British, and have never in my life heard "8 days" used to mean "a week" (unless you count a certain Beatles song!); I'm not saying that usage doesn't exist, but if it does then it's very rare indeed. Loganberry (Talk) 00:26, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

... and orto, I wasn't sneering. The phrase "Americans have usually no idea what it is" implies a US audience; otherwise it would have to make a similar statement for all other english-speaking countries. -- t


 * The term fortnight' is used in Australia, yes. MinorEdit 02:47, July 31, 2005 (UTC) Many government payments to public servants and social security recipients are paid fortnightly in Australia, keeping the term in current usage. Halmym (talk) 08:29, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

I too have caused confusion when using the expression 'fortnight' to a mainly American audience at a NATO briefing when I was stopped and asked what I was talking about. DickyP (talk) 16:31, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

More or less like in France, in Italy we say "quindici giorni" (15 days) and we mean two weeks. We also have the term "Quindicinale" that means both "every two weeks" and "twice a month".

_________"Millifortnights (about 20 minutes) and nanofortnights (1.2096 milliseconds) have also been used occasionally in computer science, usually in an attempt to be deliberately over-complex and obscure." ??? This really has sense?

Why is the term "fortnight" virtually unknown in the USA?
Do we know why the term "fortnight" is virtually unknown in the USA? It seems odd, given that other words (e.g. "gotten") that are derived from older forms of English have survived in American, but not British, speech. Headhitter (talk) 17:28, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's unknown here. I've used it all of my life. Can it's rareness be verified somewhere? 72.86.42.38 (talk) 01:47, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Have to agree with the anon here, I've known this term as far back as I can remember. Maybe it is used in some regions of the US but not others? For reference I am from NC. --Khajidha (talk) 01:43, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

For those that read novels, it is a familiar term (but they may have to come here to learn the meaning.) -- Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 02:45, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Some people play Fortnite and think someone is misspelling it. They might think they ware talking about the video game, not the period of time. 22:59, 9 March 2018 (UTC)Datboi7 (talk)
 * Note that the original post was from December 2011, so I'm fairly sure the OP wasn't addressing a game made 7 years in the future (I came here just to check on this issue too). NeonHD7 (talk) 11:31, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Fourteen days
Why would a fortnight mean fourteen days when the word itself says fourteen nights! As mentioned in the article, every other romance language has an equivelant word that means 15 days which I'd assume this English word also means the passage of 14 nights or 15 days.Metricmike (talk) 00:24, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Australian school children are taught that there are twenty-six complete fortnights (and fifty-two weeks) within one year. Each fortnight is fourteen standard twenty-four hour cycles (days measured from midnight to midnight; hence the term fortnight). Therefore, a fortnight cannot be fifteen days long as 26*15 equals 390 days which is longer than the length of one year. Or do you refer to day as meaning daylight hours? Anyhow, in that sense it is still possible for fourteen lots of night to have a corresponding fourteen lots of daylight hours instead of fifteen days (though I know, for example, holiday packages are often sold in terms of the number of "days" exceeding the number of "nights" by a count of one). Cannonbar (talk) 22:47, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
 * This has more to do with inclusive versus exclusive counting than with days versus nights. English usage excludes "today" from the time period "fourteen days from now". As I write this it is the 3rd of March. One fortnight from now would be the 17th of March. There are exactly 14 nights between those two dates. --Khajidha (talk) 22:58, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Linking to countries
I don't mean to be disruptive but I've delinked country names again. The only relevance any particular country has to this artilce is whether or not they use the term. The question could be asked of any English-speaking country. Should we link to them all? Let's keep relevant links out of the article per WP:OVERLINK. J IM ptalk·cont 00:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

My first step in adding Wiki information ...I am a regular donator though :)

In Dutch we do have a single word for fortnightly: "tweewekelijks". It constructed out of the words two (twee) and weekly (wekelijks).

The same thing in German: Zweiwöchentlich MarcPennings (talk) 09:23, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No, German does not really have any word for "fornight" or "fortnightly". It is possible, as you say, to put together any two words and make an acceptable and intelligible new word, such as "zweiwöchentlich", ""dreiwöchentlich" etc and I can well imagine some formal or administrative sources using such compound words. But in spoken German, you would always say "Der Verein trifft sich alle zwei Wochen." ["The club/society meets every two weeks/fortnightly."]. 86.161.82.81 (talk) 07:51, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Portuguese word misspelled!
The correct translation to Fortnight to Portuguese is QUINZE DIAS not QUINZE DIES, which only exists in Catalan. The word quinzena is a synonym to quinze dias, I don't have an account here, so due to massive vandalism from a certain video game fanbase (and haters too) I was unable to correct the spelling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.20.161.59 (talk) 04:33, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

To add to that, portuguese also has the word "quinzena" that means the same as "quinze dias", as seen here. Pcbcombr (talk) 23:44, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

french for fortnight is not "bihebdomadaire" but "bimensuel" (almost).
hebdomadaire means one per week, bi hebdomadaire means two per week. There is no word for a period of 2 weeks in french, but you can use bimensuel, mensuel means one per month, bimensuel two per month. Almost one per 2 weeks. Note that there is a word for two months, it is bimestre, so the adjective bimestriel, one per bimestre or one per 2 months. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.39.218.10 (talk) 07:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Other languages that fit in the description
Korean has the word 보름(boleum) that means half a month (usually means 15 days in contemporary usage) similarly to sanskrit.

Maybe we could get a discussion going where other users who don't have access can chip in with other languages that weren't noticed beforehand like Korean. Alterran (talk) 13:53, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

When?
An etymology should at least attempt to provide an approximate date for the first use of a word. I don't see any dates at all here. Saying that it was derived from Old English is not sufficient; Old English was spoken for a period of at least 600 years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 19:29, 5 May 2022 (UTC)