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I'm a native English speaker (lived all my life in the UK) and I interpret 'last January' as January 2017.
by andyjohnson0 10y ago
I'm a native English speaker (lived all my life in the UK) and I interpret 'last January' as January 2017.
- mdpopescu 10y agoSo both "January" and "last January" mean the same thing? (Not a native speaker, but a programmer :D)
- slavik81 10y agoNot necessarily. Suppose Tim and Bob are having a conversation. Tim: "It's a little known fact that Woodrow Wilson signed the Treaty of Versailles while ice skating on the royal pond." Bob: "That's clearly nonsense. The Treaty of Versailles was signed in June." It would be very different to say, "the Treaty of Versailles was signed last June." That would imply it was signed in June 2016, rather than June 1919.
- et-al 10y agoThey could mean the same thing depending on the speaker. "I saw that film last January." "I saw that film in January." As the other commenters have mentioned, "last January" may mean January 2016 for them, whereas for others it's 2017. The second example should be a definite 2017, except you always have your occasional smart alec [0]. I would disagree with jasonkester--there is ambiguity here. [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smart_aleck https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smart_aleck
- Someone 10y ago"The second example should be a definite 2017" _If_ "I saw that film in January", definitely means 2017, it requires quite deep semantics, as chancing it to "My birthday is in January" shows.
- jasonkester 10y agoHow about "last Friday?" Do you interpret that as "yesterday?"
- JoBrad 10y agoI live in the US, and also agree with this. That's why we say "before last" to specify the item before the last one.