Re: USAGE: 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".

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

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