Bi- and Semi- Prefixes

I was writing to newspapers to try to get them to publish my bridge column and I was wanting to aim for 2 columns per week to start out. My instinct was to call that bi-weekly, 2 times per week. But then I got to thinking that I get paid bi-weekly and that’s once every 2 weeks. So, semi-weekly must be the term for doing something twice per week. But then I thought of bi-monthly meaning that things get done twice per month. Then I thought about the terms people use for years. Semi-annual definitely means twice per hear. Biannual also means twice per year, but biennial means every two years. Where is the consistency?

These are how the terms are most frequently used in the US and I have heard many people over the years say to avoid using the terms biweekly or bimonthly when describing the frequency of a meeting or get together. Just use "twice a week" or "every 2 weeks" to be clear. It's nice that we have words that allow us to express an idea in one word rather than a 3 or 4 word phrase as long as we all agree on what the word actually means. I think the terms biannual and biennial are rarely confused and, therefore, can be used without potential confusion.

Somehow, these thoughts led me to thinking about the usage of dernière, which means "last" in French. They are consistent. L’année dernière means the pervious year, la semaine dernière means the pervious week (la semaine dernière, j’ai visité Reno). La dernière année and la dernière semaine both refer to the final year of week (la dernière semaine a ce travail et je ne sais pas.)