Page 135 - How to write effective business English your guide to excellent professional communication by Fiona Talbot

124 How to Write Effective Business English

‘Next Monday week’ means ‘a week from next Monday’. ‘Over
a week’ in English means ‘in more than a week’s time’. But non-NE
writers often use the expression ‘over a week’ to mean in a week’s
time, that is, one week from now. An example would be: ‘The de-
livery will be over a week.’ Again be careful if you are dealing with
orders, because you can confuse.
‘A fortnight’ means two weeks. I find that many nationalities are
unaware of this word, so it can be better to avoid it.

Time off
In UK English, people usually refer to their ‘holidays’, where US
English uses ‘vacation’. Time off work for holidays is referred to as
‘leave’; time off through illness is ‘sick leave’.

Public and bank holidays

A public holiday is an official holiday for the majority of a state or
country. In the UK, the term ‘bank holiday’ is used when the public
holiday falls on a weekday when banks are closed by law. When
you write about public holidays or bank holidays globally, be aware
that they can vary from country to country, usually being cultural
in origin.

Time

Things can go seriously wrong when different nationalities fail to
understand that they may have differing conventions for writing
times. People fail to turn up to meetings at the right time, they miss
flights, deadlines: in short, if a matter is time bound it can go
wrong. And what in business is not linked to time? Here are some
guidelines to help.

UK English

All these written versions are correct in English: