Re: This day

<<
  I've had disagreements with people about this. In my idiolect, there
  is no hard and fast rule as to whether "next Friday" refers to the
  closest following Friday or the one after that.
>>
 In my family, for the closest following Friday, we say "coming Friday". (But
when someone says "next Friday" we still ask to confirm)

  -Leon

Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> wrote:  On Mar 22, 2007, at 3:59 PM, Mark J. Reed wrote:

> On 3/22/07, Sai Emrys  wrote:
>> That seems pretty normal to me... 'this' or other referents have
>> to be
>> interpreted in context. If there's no explicit pointing, then you
>> default to some presumed referent.
>>
>> "Next week" is worse. :-P (E.g. if today is Monday and I say we're
>> going to meet next Friday... and then I say it's going to be "moved
>> back" one day... which of the four possibilities are you thinking
>> of?)
>
> If today is Monday the first and you say we're going to meet "next
> Friday", that means the 12th.  (The 5th being "this Friday").
I've had disagreements with people about this. In my idiolect, there
is no hard and fast rule as to whether "next Friday" refers to the
closest following Friday or the one after that.

>   If the
> meeting is then moved back one day, it's now on either Saturday the
> 13th or Monday the 15th, depending on whether or not we're in a
> workday context.
I find the meanings of moving an appointment "back" or "forward"*, as
well as "up" and "down" (not to mention the "top" and "bottom" of an
hour), somewhat opaque; I have to consciously think about what they
mean, failing context. (For some reason I have no trouble with the
description of time travel as moving backward and forward.)

* Actually, do people even say "move an appointment forward"? I
thought so while writing that, but now it sounds odd.

>   In my business life I  haven't yet run into anyone
> who interprets these phrases differently, although some use other
> phrases instead (like "Friday week"). My British colleagues' use of
> e.g. "half three" to mean "half past three" is the most confusing
> difference I've run across as regards time spec.
I find those even more opaque.

Another thing that this thread reminds me of is a phrase that seems a
little odd to me, seen in writing: "now ___, now ___" (e.g. "now this
way, now that", meaning "at one point, this way; at another, that",
or perhaps "sometimes this way; sometimes that"). The "now"s actually
refer to two different times, and neither time is actually the
present time!



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