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An American traveler was shocked when he came across the word ‘fortnight’ in an Australian calendar, admitting he thought only characters in Harry Potter used the term.
Josiah, from the US, travels the world and has recently come across strange differences between his home country and Australia – including the bizarre thing all Australians do at the airport.
He recently saw a calendar that teachers used to teach children how to measure time, but was stunned when he came across a particular word.
He pointed to the calendar and said, “Look here in Australia: there are 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, 14 days in two weeks and 12 months in a year. ‘
‘Two weeks? Has anyone else ever heard of this word? What is this, Harry Potter?’ he asked.
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An American was shocked when he came across the word “fortnight” on an Australian calendar
Josiah was extremely suspicious of Australians measuring time in a fortnight, and although he agreed that this sounded better than ‘fortnightly’, he still could not understand the concept.
“No way, you actually say that every two weeks,” he wrote in a response.
“I know the word because they used it at Hogwarts in Harry Potter, but it’s amazing that it’s similar to ‘week’ or ‘month’.”
The Anglo-Saxons used fourteen days to measure the length of time between the new moon and the full moon.
The term was common in North America and Canada until the 1880s, when it was phased out.
Thousands of Aussies were shocked that the rest of the world didn’t use ‘fortnight’ to measure two weeks.
“I was working for a South African finance company and they said fortnightly instead,” says one woman. ‘It drove me crazy!’
“It’s actually much more bizarre that you don’t use for 14 days,” wrote another.
‘I can’t believe there are places in the world that don’t use it – it’s so useful!’ said one.