semivitreous

Sometimes the Internet community gets a little twitterpated about random stuff. In this case, a 30-foot sculpture of an eyeball in Chicago has transmogrified artist Tony Tasset into an online celebrity. Web searches on “giant eyeball” went bananas. Let’s use this eye mania as an excuse to take a look at some of the wonderful names for the parts of our beloved lamps. Like the zonule of Zinn. What …

The prefix bi- usually means ‘every two’, so bimonthly means ‘every two months’.Semi- means ‘half’ or ‘halfway’, so semimonthly means ‘every two weeks’. However, bimonthly can also mean ‘twice a month’ – but it is rarely used that way. It is best to remember that bi- is “every two” and semi- is “halfway.”