Re: This day
| From: | Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, March 22, 2007, 20:59 |
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On 3/22/07, Sai Emrys <sai@...> 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"). 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. 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.
--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
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