This Week or Next? (minicast)

Welcome to the summer podcast edition of A Way with Words. I’m Martha Barnette.

And I’m Grant Barrett.

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Martin Coffey calling from Pittsburgh, New York.

Where’s Pittsburgh?

It’s a suburb of Rochester, New York.

What are you thinking about today?

Well, my question is about the proper use of the terms next and this, particularly in respect to the days of the week.

Oh, boy.

My wife and I have different opinions of how to use the terms, and it’s often led to some confusion when we try to plan what we’re going to do.

For example, this Monday or next Monday, we often get confused in terms of exactly which day are we talking about.

-oh, and has this ever led to one of you standing around looking at your watch and wondering where the other one is?

We’ve been married for 12 years now, so we know how to compensate for the way we each use the terms.

But in the beginning, it was a little confusing.

No marriage counseling needed here, just a little language advice.

Right.

And so, for example, if we were trying to plan an event in the future, and I would say,

Hey, how about if we go bowling next Monday?

And she might respond with, next Monday we’re going to be at your parents’ house.

And I’d say, wait a second, that’s not right.

We’re going to be here.

And she said, oh, you mean this Monday.

Oh, no.

Well, is your wife there?

Yes.

Oh.

Well, maybe we should get her version.

What do you think?

Would she talk to us?

Yeah.

Hi.

Hi, this is Cassandra.

Hi, Cassandra.

Hi.

Do you really understand what he means when he says that?

Yes.

Marty is correct in that we know what each other means, although we still use different terms.

So say it’s a Wednesday.

-huh.

Then next Monday is how many days away?

Next Monday is over seven.

Oh, really?

Yes.

For me, I’m not exactly sure why, because certainly if you’re next in line, you’re the next one.

But for some reason to me, when I’m talking about dates in the future, this coming Monday is the next one, and the next Monday is the one following that.

But you added this coming, but if you just said this Monday and it was a Tuesday, couldn’t you mean yesterday?

Oh, man.

No, to me that would mean yesterday.

It can be confusing, as you can see.

So I guess our question is, is there a standard way to use the terms, or is there a preferred way?

Oh, boy.

Holy moly, no.

No, I think you have to buy a conversion table or something.

Yeah, slide rules all around.

Martha, I think they’ve got the best solution already.

They figured it out, and they’re working with their own little private vocabulary.

Yeah, but what about when you have to be out in the larger world, Cassandra?

What do you do?

Well, I don’t know.

It’s never seemed to be a problem except when I’m doing dates with my husband.

But I’m curious how you all address those days in the future.

If today were Wednesday and I were talking about next Monday, I would—

Where does E equal MC squared come into this?

Oh, my gosh.

It’s like a theory of relativity is needed here.

It’s all about where you’re looking at it from, right?

It’s about perspective, isn’t it?

I know.

Well, Grant, if say this was Wednesday, when would next Monday be for you?

Next Monday would be five days away.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

When would this coming Monday be for you?

Well, coming, you kind of leave that out because that just gives it all away.

This coming Monday is also five days away.

Well, when is this Monday?

Well, this Monday, that’s the question.

That actually would be where I would have the difficulty.

This Monday for me depends on what you’re saying.

The whole sentence is important.

Grant, if you said this Monday, you don’t mean Monday two days ago.

Well, I could actually, particularly if it was Tuesday.

If somebody says to me, when did we go to that restaurant?

And I would say we went this Monday.

I could mean yesterday or I could mean five days from now, six days from now.

Yes, absolutely.

Is this the kind of discussion that you and Marty would have all the time?

Yes, exactly.

Can he hear this conversation?

Yes.

Oh, good.

Okay.

And I would like to point out that I think that this confusion really just centers on days more than other time frames, because I think that if I said this month and next month or this year and next year, there wouldn’t be any confusion.

Because if I said if I were talking about this month, everybody knows that that is the month that we are currently in.

And that’s the sort of logic that I try to use to convert my wife to my usage.

But, you know, if I say, if I said this Monday, I should mean the Monday of this week.

But no logic has been able to convert her usage.

And I would have to agree with that as well.

I don’t know, for some reason, to me, just the way that I’ve grown to use those words,

Just the days of the week is the only difference.

And I think that might be because we have more specific terms for being in the day,

So we don’t actually encounter that simplicity of being in the week.

We don’t have something the equivalent of today to mean this week.

We don’t have to week or anything like that.

Oh, that’s true.

So you would often say tomorrow, today, and yesterday are very clear.

You know which days are being talked about.

But when you step beyond tomorrow and yesterday, that’s where we encounter the difficulties, right?

Yes, that’s true.

And for you guys, most of it’s about the future.

But you know what you find, Martha?

And I bet you guys do it, too.

You find yourself just automatically restating the answer anyway.

Or saying the date.

If you’re talking about the week, Cassandra, do you always know what the actual date was?

No, not necessarily.

Right.

So that’s a difficulty there.

Oh, no, I think the only thing is to try to be as clear as possible.

And like you say, maybe add in the actual date in addition to the day.

So like we’ve said, this is just a kind of a friendly argument that we have,

And it’s interesting to see what other people’s takes on it is.

Oh, my gosh, my head hurts.

What do you guys think?

I guess that one thing that I often find myself doing is adding more adjectives to it,

Such as this coming Monday.

Yes.

To emphasize that we’re talking about the next Monday,

Which, you know, that would be my use of the next Monday,

Would be this coming Monday as opposed to this Monday in this week,

Which may be in the past.

Yeah, I think that’s helpful.

Thank you so much for your call.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Take me to the next confusion.

Show me what awaits me there.

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Take me to the next confusion.

Show me what awaits me there.

Lead me safely through the next confusion.

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