Let’s imagine it’s currently Wednesday the 1st. Does “next Saturday” mean Saturday the 4th (the next Saturday to occur) or Saturday the 11th (the Saturday of next week)?

  • Fondots@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I feel like the tense of the rest of the sentence determines which day you’re referring to when you use “this.”

    “I went to the movies this Saturday.” Would be the Saturday that just happened

    Vs

    “I’m going to the movies this Saturday” would be this coming Saturday

    You could of course further disambiguate it by using “this past Saturday” and “this coming Saturday” if you really wanted to, but I think in most contexts the rest of the sentence does it well enough.

    • Otter@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Oh yes, I guess I should add more words to the examples

      • “Next Saturday I will go to the movies”
      • “This Saturday I will go to the movies”

      “this” feels more appropriate

      • “Next Sunday I will go to the movies”
      • “This Sunday I will go to the movies”

      “next” feels more appropriate

      Even with the “coming” to clarify, it feels more natural to associate “this” with items that are in this week (Sunday to Saturday) and “next” with items that start on the following week’s Sunday