“Take This Exit” — Which One Do You Mean?

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, how are you?

My name is Todd Hartley from St. Pete Beach, Florida.

How you doing?

Well, you know, it’s been a subject around a lot of dinner tables at our household. And I know that makes it sound like a very boring family, but the subject is on this word next. N-E-X-T, next.

I just don’t understand why it’s such a thing, but I guess kind of the question is, when does next really mean next? And I’ll give you an example here. I’ll kind of set a scene how this whole word issue with next came up.

So I was cruising down the freeway with my son, right? And I’m taking him to a birthday party. This was many years ago. And I’m cruising down the freeway, and my son says, okay, take the next exit. So I see the exit coming up, right? And I take it. And immediately my son says, no, I told you to take the next exit, not this one.

Well, in my mind, right, in my mind, I took the next exit. It’s the first one coming up. So we ended up getting lost and late for the birthday party. And I got home. My wife was mad at me. Why were you so late? You wanted to be at, well, you told me to take the next exit. I took the next exit. And it wasn’t the right one. It was the first one and blah, blah, blah. So it’s just become a lot of confusion, you know?

I have to tell you, if I were driving along and somebody said, take the next exit, and there was an exit right there in front of me, I would take that exit. A hundred percent. My wife and I have had that argument. A hundred percent. She no longer gives me instructions. I have Google do it. So I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy. Okay.

No, but the thing is, both of these modes of speech are out there, and they are in constant conflict. The next versus this is a real dilemma in all the ways that you outlined it, both on the highway and both with the week and both with the calendar.

Absolutely. You’re not the only one. We’ve talked about this on the show before. We get emails about it. These fights are not boring. They’re super exciting because we’re nerds. Can we come to your house for dinner? Do you want to talk at length about a very nerdy linguistic topic? Yes, please.

Yeah, we wear a lot of shades and we talk about the word next. We’ll be right over. When you’re driving, a lot of times there’s not a moment to ask for clarification. I get that. But really, in an everyday conversation, ordinarily we say, did you mean this coming Saturday or the one after that? I mean, that’s how you would approach that. But when you’re driving and people are just like blurting out commands, you sometimes just have to blindly follow them to the best of your ability. And that’s where the mistakes happen.

Right. Right. And then you’re late for the birthday party. Right. The same way that people shout shotgun before they get in the car, we need to have a thing where you shout, all right, this is not a next car. We don’t say next in my car. This is a this car. This is a this car. Take this exit.

Exactly. Yeah. Take this exit or the one after this. This is how we say it. We don’t use the word next in this car. Yeah, that’s exactly right. So I guess it comes down to you just have to really make sure you have clarification when you use that word.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s easier when you’re just, you’re not driving and there’s not that tension of, you know, driving is already stressful enough and somebody giving you commands, even though you love them and they’re an important part of your life and you want only the best for them. Boy, that is still a tense situation.

Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you. We’re glad that you could vent. We’re going to give you the first session for free. But if you want to come back to therapy, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Well, thank you. I appreciate the clarification. I guess until next time, we’ll talk again. All right. Take care now. Best wishes. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Martha, I don’t even want to open the phone lines for this one. No, no. Let’s shut them down for the day. If you want to talk about anything but next week versus this week or this exit versus next exit, call 877-929-9673.