vitally important calendar poll

[topaz]

Suppose that today is Wednesday, March 1st.

A friend proposes an event for "next Sunday."

[Poll #440001]

Comments

[beah.livejournal.com]

Except that both of those are Saturday dates. ;)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I don't mean specifically this year. Just, assume that today is Wednesday, March 1, and proceed from there. :-)

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

It is unclear. My first instinct would be 3/5, but I wouldn't assume this is true. Wednesday is particularly tricky, as "this Sunday" could mean either Sunday 2/26 (assuming it's not a leap year) or Sunday 3/5.

The moral of the story is, "Always say the date."

[boutell.livejournal.com]

AWOOGA! Language hole detected!

"This coming Saturday" is unambiguous (March 5th). "Next Saturday"
is a deadly trap of confusion.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

This year or next year?

[mattlistener.livejournal.com]

In my experience:

On Monday, "next Sunday" means 6 days from now.

On Saturday, "next Sunday" means 8 days from now.

...so obviously somewhere in between, it becomes a tossup what the person means.

[huaman.livejournal.com]

It's Weds, March 1. This Sunday is March 5. Next Sunday is March 12. However, I still clarify terms when proposing it -- "This coming Sunday, this week" or "Not this coming Sunday, but next" or by using the date as well.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

*ding!* I would say that for me, the shift from denoting the upcoming Sunday as "next Sunday" to denoting it as "this Sunday" definitely has taken place by Thursday. On Tuesday, I'm still saying "X was this Sunday," as in "this past", so the upcoming Sunday is "next". But on Wednesday, it's a gray area.

[randysmith]

The glass is twice as big as it needs to be :-}

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I chose Wednesday to make the example as ambiguous as possible. :-)

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

The thing I have always found amazing about discussions of this sort (which didn't happen (yet) in this one) is that there are a suprising number of people who don't get why this is difficult. "The answer is X," they loudly proclaim, "and everyone knows that! What is the matter with you stupid people?" When, of course, "everyone" doesn't agree to that (as shown by informal polls like this one), and there isn't even any reference that I have ever seen anyone point to that gives the authoritative answer.

I am particularly tickled by how evenly split the answers on your poll are - over 40% of respondants are "those stupid people," no matter which way you believe it should be.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

2023.

[candle-light.livejournal.com]

Next is to take a poll asking about where people are from (or what geographic area they lived in when learning English). Then see if there is any correlation between answers :-)

[kcatalyst.livejournal.com]

on Wednesday, there is no next Sunday. There is only this Sunday and Sunday week or *next* Sunday, said with great emphasis and much hand waving and subsequent clarification. So if someone else used it, I would: one, I ask which one they meant and two, verify that they knew which it currently was.

[khedron.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Sucks, doesn't it?

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

And in six months we could put up huge county-by-county breakdown maps on http://www.thisweekendvsnextweekend.com! Yes!

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

I'd say the real question in this poll is "Do I have to specify the date as well as the day when inviting someone in for tea?"

[psongster.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the poll. I too found the almost-even results interesting.

I was caught by this issue just last week. A notice in the Thursday (local, weekly) town paper said an event would be "next Friday." So I showed up eight days after the publication date -- only to be told the event had been the day after the publication date. Since when is "next Friday" a synonym for "tomorrow"?

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Maybe, if the notice was submitted on Monday, the wording made sense at the time to the author and they hadn't considered that it would read differently on the day of publication?

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

"Back off, man. I'm a linguist."

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Damn right! And I am still astonished that YOU PEOPLE haven't GOTTEN IT RIGHT yet!

[mhw.livejournal.com]

Where I grew up, "next Sunday" would be the next Sunday after today. "Sunday next" would be the Sunday after that, being short for "Sunday next week", I suppose.

I'd generally say "this Sunday" or "this coming Sunday" if I meant the nearer one, unless the context was in the past, where "this Sunday" would refer to the Sunday that had just gone.

It's always safer to give the date as well as the day, since people's interpretation varies.

[mhw.livejournal.com]

It's always safer to do so, so I'd say that it's better to.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

When is nap time?

My cat's breath smells like cat food!

[mhw.livejournal.com]

There almost certainly would be consistent geographical variation.

To clutter the picture further, on which day (in people's opinion) does the week commence?

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

I don't know. My initial reaction would be the 5th, but I would almost certainly verify.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Holy smokes, "next Sunday" and "Sunday next"? That sounds even more arbitrary than this vs. next! Maybe I shouldn't be complaining. :-)

[sine.livejournal.com]

"next sunday" is the 5th.
"sunday week" is the 12th.

i would probably just say "sunday" to refer to the 5th, though.

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

Idjit! You probably put toilet paper in the rack so that it rolls down in back, don't you?

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

Eeew! My cat's food smells like cat breath!

[queenmomcat.livejournal.com]

Isn't the right answer the day which the asker intends?

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah!

But that's different. It's a practical thing! Ask anyone with a two-year-old. :-)

[psongster.livejournal.com]

Yes -- that's my assumption. But it just reinforces your point that this particular aspect of the English language doesn't work well!

[jasra]

shayde talked about this in his weblog a while ago... And reviewing the poll results, I will be sure to discuss specific dates with points else we'll miss each other. :)

[cruiser.livejournal.com]

And even if there were a reference that claims to give an authoritative answer, if it disagrees with 40% of respondents, it's not authoritative, because language is what we agree it is, not what a book says it is. So while a book can say authoritatively that "ain't is non-standard and informal", it's just plain wrong if it says "ain't is not a word in the English language."

[ladytabitha.livejournal.com]

March 5th being "this Sunday", after all.

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

Well! I guess that knocked you off your high horse, didn't it, minority boy!

[(Anonymous)]

but are you cunning?

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

... you have to ask?

I mean, I don't even know who you are, but really... you have to ask?

[penk.livejournal.com]

AHA! I -knew- this had a big Deja Vu element to it. I couldn't figure out from where. It was me! sheesh.

I think the almost-even answers on the poll results should send a clear signal to english speakers everywhere.

"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!"

[jasra]

Exactly!

[beowabbit]

I answered “Sunday, March 5”, and all the rest of you are just flat wrong, because if there’s a Sunday between now and March 12th, then March 12th isn’t the next one, is it? Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

However, the phrases I would say to communicate those two dates are “this coming Sunday” and “Sunday of next week”.

(I think the reason all of those people are confused is that they’re mixing up “next Sunday” and “next week”, and thinking next Sunday has to happen in next week. But that’s what happens when we start putting creationism stickers in schoolbooks...)

Pardon me, I had maybe four hours sleep last night, all of it on an airplane.

[cindy-lu.livejournal.com]

To me, the week runs from Sunday to Saturday, and "this _____day", refers to the day of that name that falls in the week I am currently in, "next ____day" falls in the next week. So, if it is Wednesday March 1, then "this Sunday" was probably Sunday the 26th, and Next Sunday, will be March 5th.

[earthling177.livejournal.com]

For me, "next Sunday" is obviously the one that is right after today, hence Mar 5th. However, my first language is Portuguese (Brazilian Portuguese, at that), so it might color the interpretation a lot.

Also, where I grew up, you have breakfast in the morning, lunch around noon, dinner around sundown and supper around midnight (when you have a big party involving all your family, like First Night), and it's very obvious by which word was used what time you're supposed to show up. It *always* confused me how people here can have "dinner" at noon and "supper" at 6pm, and it varies not only by region, but also if you are talking to someone who works in a rural area or a city. What was explained to me (and for all I know they might be pulling my leg), is that "dinner" is the bigger meal during the day, and if you are working in a farm, you may have had breakfast at 5am, lunch at 10am and dinner at 1pm and then went to sleep by sundown or something.

Bottom line, I learned to always ask what date/time it is, lest I won't be able to show up at the right one. But to be honest, that started long ago before I've even moved to US -- it started when computers became more common, and, for some people it's still "today" if they did not go to sleep then woke up, as opposed to all the other right thinking people (me included ;-) ) who thought that if it's 3am "today" means "even after I go to sleep and wake up". But I suppose that's yet another conversation.