Summer Timetable Has Ended - but do Americans Know What a Fortnight is?

I just thought I'd announce formally that my summer timetable is now over and that this blog is back to normal, though that seems obvious to me given the large number of posts I've placed here in the last few days.

 

I was worried because of one irritated post, when I announced the summer arrangements, complaining that I was planning to take four weeks off, which of course I wasn't.

 

I feared ( and fear) that this was a misunderstanding of the word 'fortnight', which , like the letter 'zed' (as opposed to 'zee'),  and the expression 'I'll give you a ring' (as opposed to 'I'll call you') is not in common use in the USA. 

 

Let me explain. 'Fortnight' is a corruption of 'Fourteen nights', just as the obsolete 'Sennight', which you will sometimes find in Shakespeare, is a corruption of 'seven nights'. It means 'two weeks'. So,  'I'll give you a ring in a fortnight' does not mean that I plan to give you an item of jewellery four weeks from now. It means that I will telephone you after two weeks. 

 

It is a constant puzzle and fascination to me that some English expressions have not stayed current in the USA, whereas some that were English (such as 'gotten', and not pronouncing the 'h' in 'herb') have died out in England and survived in the USA.

 

Is it because these things were regional in England and English-Americans came predominantly from certain parts of the country? Or is there some other explanation?