Howard Winter wrote:

>> BTW, is fortnight just an Australian thing these days?
> 
> Certainly not - it's English!  :-)
> 
>> My recent co-workers, be they German, Korean, Russian, Estonian,
>> Swedish, Indian or whatever have all looked at me blankly when I use
>> fortnight.  What gives?
> 
> Well they're non-native English speakers, so obviously there are words
> that aren't taught in Business English, and perhaps fortnight doesn't
> have an equivalent in other languages?  We don't have a name for three
> weeks, for example - perhaps it's only English that has a name for two?

I don't think fortnight is among the most commonly taught words. However,
even though there is no actual word for it, in the part of Germany where
I'm from, the (literally translated) expression "fourteen days" is quite
common for expressing "two weeks". You just have to have it heard (and
understood) once to recognize it -- and maybe fortnight is not that
frequent in formal (business) language?

Gerhard

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