Re: USAGE: How to say This Week?

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Cowan" <cowan@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 11:53 AM
Subject: Re: How to say This Week?


> Dan Sulani scripsit:
> >     A recent (and very loud :-)  ) misunderstanding
> > between my daughter and myself got me to wondering
> > how to designate, in our conlangs, the current
> > week we are in, the week following the current week,
> > and the previous week.
> >     (FWIW, the misunderstanding came about because
> > although we were both speaking English, my daughter
> > was probably thinking in Hebrew. This matters because
> > in English, "this week" refers to the current week.
>
> Additionally, there is a disagreement between different English-speakers
> as to the meaning of "this Tuesday".  For some (including me), it is
> the first Tuesday after today.  For others (including my wife), it is
> the Tuesday belonging to this week, whether or not that has already
passed.
> We both agree that "next Tuesday" is one week after "this Tuesday".
Hmm.  For me, 'this Tuesday' is the next Tuesday in this week. "Last
Tuesday" is the tuesday the previous week.  The earlier Tuesday in the week
is just "Tuesday", and next Tuesday is the Tuesday in the next week, as you
said, one week after "this Tuesday".

> When this is compounded with the question of whether the week begins on
> Sunday (as traditionally) or Monday (as pocket calendars, but usually
> not wall calendars, have it, and as the ISO standard says), confusion can
> run rampant.
>
> The ISO standard says that the week begins on Monday, and that the first
> week of the year is that which contains the first Thursday of the year
> (equivalently, the week that contains January 4).
>
> --
> John Cowan  jcowan@reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
www.reutershealth.com
> "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I am surrounded by
dwarves."
>         --Murray Gell-Mann
>