I discovered to my amazement some years ago that a Canadian guy working here in Australia just stared at me blankly when I said a particular task would "take a fortnight to complete". It would thus seem the term (which refers to a two week period) ISN'T in use throughout the English speaking world.

Please let me know where you are in the world and whether "fortnight" is in common usage there.

I was particularly surprised that it was a North American that hadn't heard the word. One only has to think of a military fort and one automatically thinks of North America.

In comparison to the multitude of forts in the USA and Canada, there have only been a couple of well-known forts in Australia - Fort Denison (in Sinny Arba, right in frunna the Oprowse) in particular. Could it be that our paltry few have contributed this term to Australian English??

(I'm guessing that a "fortnight" referred initially to a two-week tour of duty?)

stales