Sunday, November 29, 2015

grammaticality - Is "five-yearly" an acceptable usage of an adverb of manner in British English?




Today's BBC News web page has this headline:




New era of five-yearly doctor checks starts




There's a word that means "five-yearly": quinquennial. It's probably too long for headline writers and too difficult for most readers, so I understand why it wasn't used, but shouldn't it have been five-year instead?





New era of five-year doctor checks starts



Answer



It is just my opinion, but it is a poorly written headline. It really makes it sound like you now need to visit the doctor five times per year instead of a doctor being appraised once every five years. I'm from Canada by the way. When I looked at it my first thought was five per year, but then my logical brain took over and said that the writer did a bad job right after reading it. And a check of the article confirms this. :)


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