Judy confessed that she didn't know what a 'fortnight' is. Sorry for using non-international English!!
A fortnight is actually fourteen nights. Two weeks. Yup. It's true. Don't know why Brits and Aussies feel the need to describe half a month that way, but we do.
Fortnight is a contraction of the Old English feowertyneniht, literally fourteen nights. It dates to c. 1000. (www.wordorigins.org)
So now you know!
3 comments:
Hi Lily, will send your book on Monday. Have a good weekend.
Thanks for the explanation. I always wondered how long a fortnight was but never asked!! Strange that 2 weeks would need a special name...is there one for a month?
There is never a need "americanise" oryour posts for us (or me)or use "international engligh"! Part of the fun of reading blogs from all over the world is hearing the quirks and differences in languages. Especially some of the nicknames and slang words!!I find those so fun and interesting!! My neice married an english guy and I LOVE hearing his parents talk. He lost his british accent long ago.
So Aussie it up all you want!*VBG*
Here in Germany we are learning British English at school and we even learnt the word 'fortnight'. At university we had a professor from UK and we were only allowed to use BE in the exams otherwise it would be a mistake. And we weren't not aware how many American English words are out in the world.
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