4 ms·

If it's Saturday, and you're sending an email or text to confirm Monday's plans, you'd more likely to say "this Monday" than you would say "next Monday," though

If it's Saturday, and you're sending an email or text to confirm Monday's plans, you'd more likely to say "this Monday" than you would say "next Monday," though? I agree with you, "this <weekday>" means the upcoming day this week, and generally changes to "last" if referring to the past, and "next" if referring to next week. "Next week Monday" or "a week from Monday" could both refer to "Monday, a week from now" though the first one might be confused if sent on a Friday... Really, the answer is to skip English entirely and use calendar events and hope time zones don't change between when you plan the event and when it occurs. ;-)

function_seven 5y ago
If given a binary choice, I think you're right. I'd use "this Monday." But really I'd just say "Monday" or "on Monday" in that case. As in, "Just confirming that we're going to update the confabulator settings on Monday." After writing my previous comment, I keep coming up with exceptions and variances to those exceptions. Like—as I write this—I would refer to June 9 as "this Wednesday", but June 11 as "next Friday". So I suppose I "glue" Fridays to the weekend? And right now it's still the weekend so June 4 retains the "this" title until tomorrow? Starting to feel like I have epicycles of rules similar to the adjective ordering we all know, but never explicitly learned ("big red bouncy rubber ball" is okay; "bouncy red rubber big ball" is NOT OK)
- lstamour 5y ago
  Yeah, the "weekend-ness" of Friday is interesting. Actually I could extend that to the last couple days, in relative time. For example, if it's Thursday, and I said "last Monday", that would actually be kind of confusing, just as if it were Sunday and I said "last Friday". I'm much more likely to say "On Monday," or "On Friday," if it's within the current week or the current weekend, and use the sentence context to figure out if I meant the previous weekday or the upcoming one. I'm glad I don't write either dictionaries or voice-based/natural language apps for calendar appointments. ;-)

function_seven 5y ago

If given a binary choice, I think you're right. I'd use "this Monday." But really I'd just say "Monday" or "on Monday" in that case. As in, "Just confirming that we're going to update the confabulator settings on Monday." After writing my previous comment, I keep coming up with exceptions and variances to those exceptions. Like—as I write this—I would refer to June 9 as "this Wednesday", but June 11 as "next Friday". So I suppose I "glue" Fridays to the weekend? And right now it's still the weekend so June 4 retains the "this" title until tomorrow? Starting to feel like I have epicycles of rules similar to the adjective ordering we all know, but never explicitly learned ("big red bouncy rubber ball" is okay; "bouncy red rubber big ball" is NOT OK)

lstamour 5y ago
Yeah, the "weekend-ness" of Friday is interesting. Actually I could extend that to the last couple days, in relative time. For example, if it's Thursday, and I said "last Monday", that would actually be kind of confusing, just as if it were Sunday and I said "last Friday". I'm much more likely to say "On Monday," or "On Friday," if it's within the current week or the current weekend, and use the sentence context to figure out if I meant the previous weekday or the upcoming one. I'm glad I don't write either dictionaries or voice-based/natural language apps for calendar appointments. ;-)