Sunday, July 15, 2012

What the hell is a fortnight anyway?

So since my last post was me waxing philosophical about the NCAA, I suppose this one should be something  actually about Australia. One of the things I noticed here is that the word fortnight is used quite a lot. People use it in everyday conversation. Something happening in two weeks? They'll say it's in a fortnight. However it is also used in banking and rent and stuff. I pay my car and rent payments fortnightly, not monthly. This could easily get confusing, but since everything is done automatically with online banking it isn't a big deal. It also works well for me since one full on and off swing for me is two weeks. For a term that is considered antiquated in the US to be a cornerstone of banking is a bit of a change.

3 comments:

  1. Do you make the payments fortnightly or semimonthly? In payroll, there's a big difference between biweekly and semimonthly, which result in 26 or 24 pay periods per year respectively. Just curious.

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  2. It is a fortnight. I've looked into it. On my banks page to set up regular payments there are options for weekly, fortnightly, and monthly. The funny thins is I get paid semimonthly.

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  3. Hey I am moving to Australia in 10 days and was wondering how you watch hokie games in the fall? Thanks

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