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Its generally pretty unambiguous in American English. I've only ever run into people claiming to have an odd way of using this and next differently online. For
by ac29 9y ago
Its generally pretty unambiguous in American English. I've only ever run into people claiming to have an odd way of using this and next differently online.
For everyone else, there is an understood "week's" inserted into the phrase "this Monday" or "next Monday" (that is, they mean this week's Monday, even if it was in the past, and next week's Monday, respectively).
Context cues help as well. The question "what did we talk about this Monday?" is obviously past tense and couldn't be interpreted to be referring to the following Monday. But if someone asked me today "lets plan to meet this Monday", its a nonsensical statement that would require clarification, because Monday was 3 days ago.
- blueprint 9y agoI always add a "coming" or "past" after "this" to remove ambiguity.
- virusduck 9y agoI'd say it remains pretty ambiguous. I often have trouble with people saying "next Monday" and I have to ask for clarification every time. My default for "next Monday" is "the next Monday we get to." Sometimes people mean the "NEXT" Monday, not "this coming Monday." Awful. And I never have considered or heard of the "this week's Monday" "next week's Monday" interpretation, although I guess I've heard people speak this way occasionally.