Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 November 4

= November 4 =

Income
Hi there, I just saw an job offer from Australia where the remuneration was stated, followed by the abbreviation "p.f.". My initial though was it stands for something like "before taxes" or something but googling it didn't yield satifying results. Ideas? Thanks in advance folks! --78.49.251.236 (talk) 09:22, 4 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Per fortnight? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  09:27, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * This document from the Queensland Teachers' Union uses "p.f." to mean "per fortnight". Tevildo (talk) 09:50, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * A fortnight is 14 days. It's a common term in Commonwealth English, but not in American English. LongHairedFop (talk) 12:45, 4 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Short for "fourteen nights", right? We would say two weeks, which is "fourteen days", and a typical pay period for hourly workers. Just one of those little different ways of saying the same thing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:58, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, derived from the Old English fēowertyne niht, which does at least mean "fourteen nights". Which you would know if you had read the reference already provided in LongHairedFop's post; no need to post a misleading guess. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:38, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Not a guess, and not misleading. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:18, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You offered up a false etymology that contradicted the sourced derivation in the already-linked article. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:06, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * What false etymology? You said it yourself: it's from "fourteen nights". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:15, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Old English had ceased to be spoken by the time of Middle English about 1150 to 1500, when the relevant term was fourteniht. It is this word being contracted in the 17th century that gave fortnight to modern English. Blooteuth (talk) 01:47, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, as per the EO website. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:52, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * "being contracted" is an improper use of the progressive--the proper ntive idiomatic usage is simply "contracted". μηδείς (talk) 02:18, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * In my lamentable clumsiness I construed the gerund being contracted in apposition with fourteniht. As one to whom even the meaning of "ntive" is as perplexing a mystery as why someone styles themself in Νέα Ελληνικά, I am grateful for any correction you feel I need. Blooteuth (talk) 16:00, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Interesting to discover that you equate intentional solecisms ("is...being contracted") with the accidental omission of a letter; to learn that Old and Middle English are discrete entities; and that Plato, Herodotus, Sophocles, and Xenophon (μηδείς) all spoke "New Greek". Next you'll be lecturing us that the reason the Pleiades only has seven stars is because it does not have eight. μηδείς (talk) 00:23, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You having brought the matter to such an examination as that upon which we now find ourselves arraigned, I can no longer spare your tender eyes the rigour of the ablative absolute (Latin: ablātīvus absolūtus) that emerges in this rewording: "It is the word fourteniht, having been contracted in the 17th century, that gave fortnight to modern English." Old and Middle English are described by separate Wikipedia articles, to which I have linked. Plato, Herodotus, Sophocles, and Xenophon were all dead by 347 BCE. They likely spoke Ancient Greek, read Homeric Greek and never heard Ελληνιστική Κοινή which they would have regarded as the slang of some new-fangled religious movement. As to the number of Pleiades, the logo on Subaru cars shows only Mutsuraboshi ("six stars") while Galileo saw and sketched 36 stars. But if you look for all seven sisters: Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope, you find that their Titan dad Atlas and mother Pleione are distinctly visible, which makes 9 stars. Blooteuth (talk) 14:58, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I see you've already located the link to Etymology Online, but here it is for convenience: . Hell, I'll quote the relevant bit here:
 * "fortnight (n.) "period of two weeks," 17c. contraction of Middle English fourteniht, from Old English feowertyne niht, literally "fourteen nights" (see fourteen + night). It preserves ...."
 * The word fortnight isn't "short for fourteen nights", and it isn't "from 'fourteen nights'". It's from the Middle English fourteniht, which is from the Old English feowertyne niht.  The words feowertyne and niht, in Modern English, mean fourteen and night(s), but the word fortnight has its roots in the Old English, not in the Modern.  It comes from the contraction of Old English words, not as a shortening of Modern English words as you suggested. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:36, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * So it's short for Old and Middle English words which meant "fourteen nights". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:49, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It originated with separate Old English words which meant "fourteen nights", yes. I presume that the Middle English fourteniht, as a single shortened word, had already diverged from whatever the ME words for "fourteen nights" would be. (Wiktionary reports that 'fourteen' in ME was fourtene, and that 'night' might be rendered as night, nyght, niȝt, or naht, and I have no idea how to correctly form the plural.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:11, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * (ec) Not at all. The term is derived from "fourteen nights", but it's only a precise period when referring to fortnightly pay or some other regular 14-day period such as rent day. Otherwise, fortnight is an imprecise period of about 14 days and generally means "in the second week counting from today". For example, "See you in a fortnight" might be used on a weekday to refer to any of the days in the week that is 2 weeks away, including the weekend of that week (more than 14 days). On a Saturday or Sunday, the phrase might be used to refer to one of the days in the week that follows the next weekend, or the Saturday or Sunday of that week (literally 14 or 15 days). In this case, because the start is defined as a weekend (a division of one week from another), it's not usual to exceed 14-15 days by going beyond the Sunday. Akld guy (talk) 14:13, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * UK usage. A fortnight is 14 days and has exactly the same meaning and precision as two weeks. There is nothing imprecise about the time. Obviously individual usage is often imprecise - "I'll phone you back in an hour" rarely means in 3600 seconds, but that doesn't stop an hour being 3600 seconds. Similarly here with fortnight. -- SGBailey (talk) 10:53, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * For extra confusion, the French for fortnight is quinze jours (15 days). The French Wiktionary article says it was originally a legal term for half a 30-day month. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:11, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * And in Italian, quindici giorni or in some circumstances just plain quindici (=15) mean a fortnight. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 16:04, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * In England (until legislation was brought in to change it) "month" meant "lunar month" or exactly four weeks. 86.155.148.59 (talk) 16:13, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
 * That must have been some time ago, the abbreviation "pcm" is commonly used in the UK meaning "per calendar month", a definition which has escaped our PCM (disambiguation) page. Alansplodge (talk) 18:25, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There's a link to Wiktionary, where you'll find it.  Of course, a calendar month has always been a calendar month - the purpose of the law was to make it unnecessary to mention it specifically if that's what you wanted.   Oxford English Dictionary says:  "(b) containing 28 days (often miscalled a 'lunar month')".   A nineteenth - century commentator remarked, "In Scotland, we are said to enjoy nine months of winter and three months of very bad weather."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.8.218.14 (talk) 20:22, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Now added to PCM (disambiguation). Alansplodge (talk) 22:20, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The change in the definition of "month" from "four weeks" to "calendar month" in English law was effected by Section 61 of the Law of Property Act 1925, incidentally. Tevildo (talk) 22:10, 6 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The printed version of the Oxford English Dictionary says:

"In the Julian calendar, the months in leap year had alternately 31 and 30 days, while in other years February had only 29 instead of 30. This symmetrical arrangement was under Augustus broken up by the transference of a day from February to August, and of a day from September and November to October and December respectively, producing the system now in use."

This is utter nonsense. Is it still perpetuated in the online version? Britannica online has it. 80.5.88.70 (talk) 07:55, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * All this philosophical banter, while amusing, has long since deviated from the question originally posited by the IP.--WaltCip (talk) 19:33, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It was answered 28 minutes after it was asked. The rest could be boxed up. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:02, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed, and done. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:30, 7 November 2017 (UTC)