What are your rules about next and last regarding days of the week.

The way I see it is: today is Thursday, the Tuesday that just passed is last Tuesday, and the Tuesday that is coming up is either this Tuesday or next Tuesday.

Anything beyond that bracket is a week from this Tuesday or a week before this past Tuesday. After that I just start using actual dates otherwise it gets really confusing.

I’ve always had a hard time with this because everyone does it differently. Just to be perfectly clear, I am overly specific about it most of the time. “This past Tuesday” means the most recent Tuesday. “This coming Tuesday” means the very next Tuesday. If it’s any other Tuesday, I get really convoluted… “Not this past Tuesday, but the one before that…”, etc. It gets on my damn nerves.

I tend to say, “then on Tuesday, I did x” to mean the most recent one. If I think the person might not understand, I say “this Tuesday, two days ago, I went” If it was the one 9 days ago, I’ll say “last week, on Tuesday we went out” or “Tuesday of last week”. I think it makes it pretty obvious to most people. As far as what other people are saying, I don’t expect them to follow any pre-conceived “rules”, I just go with what it seems like they mean, and if I don’t understand I ask, “you mean this week we’re in now, or last week?” of course on the weekends, i have to phrase it differently, but i won’t get into all that.

Last Tuesday is the previous Tuesday, and if today is a Tuesday, not today.
Next Tuesday is the next Tuesday that will occur, and if today is a Tuesday not today.

So, they are so wrong about next Tuesday being over 7 days away. However, if you talked about the Tuesday coming up and then said “the next Tuesday” in THAT context, it’s be the one 7 days after the one you were just talking about.

I think you are even more wrong about “this” Tuesday being the most recent past Tuesday, and last Tuesday being more than 7 days ago. I think that’s just bizarre. ;-)

If it were Thursday and I was talking about something that happened on the Tuesday just passed, I would simply say it happened on Tuesday. If it were Tuesday in the previous week, I would say last Tuesday which really is a bit ambiguous because both Tuesdays are last Tuesdays. The one coming up in the next week is definitely next Tuesday. Better say the date next time to be sure!

@rooeytoo My ex and I used to argue over ‘next Tuesday’ all the time. To him, the very next Tuesday is ’this Tuesday’. The one after that is ‘next Tuesday’. That never made any sense at all to me.

@augustlan – wow, that must really have been confusing and nope makes no sense to me either.

I’ve run into this often and I’ve learned to just specifically explain what I mean. For example I would have said something along the lines of “last Tuesday, not two days ago but last week’s Tuesday” And if the conversation was taking place on on Monday And I wanted to say something about the Tuesday of the following week, I’d say something like “Next, tuesday, as in next week I’ll be (insert activity here)”

Is it Friday today? I’m a little confused!!!

I say that the coming xday is this xday and the one just gone last xday does that make sense??

Whoa. Maybe I shouldn’t have read this question at 2:55am.

I’m all over the place. I have no definite rule. That should be my life motto.

If it’s the beginning of the week, talking about a day coming up, I use “this.”

If it’s the middle of the week, talking about any day from the beginning of the week until now, I clarify with either yesterday, the day before, or on Sunday a few days ago…

If it was last week, I say Tuesday, last week. If it’s next week, I say next week on Tuesday.

In other words, I’ll add a little more info to make sure it’s understood, becasue if it’s Monday and I say next Thursday, it isn’t clear which one I mean.

Whew.

Also a frequent source of disagreement in the Harp household

I apply the “bus” standard: if we were standing at a bus stop and I said, “Take the next bus”, you wouldn’t let one go by before boarding the second; you’d take the very next bus to come along. Likewise, if I said, “The last bus was too crowded”, I think anyone would know that I meant the bus that just went by.

I don’t understand why days of the week should work differently.

It’s certainly ambiguous because people do use the terms differently. I think it can depend on how close to the day in question you are. If you are only a day in front of or past the day in question, it’s “this” day, as far as I’m concerned. I.e, if it’s the Monday before Tuesday or the Wednesday after Tuesday, then Tuesday is “this” Tuesday.

It gets more ambiguous the further away you are. If you are two days away, we start to move into “last” and “next” territory, but not everyone has the same buffer. For some, even if you are four or five days away from the following Tuesday, that Tuesday is still “this” Tuesday, and the subsequent Tuesday will be “next” Tuesday.

It is similar once you get past the Tuesday. It starts getting ambiguous once you are more than one day past the day in question.

I usually check with the person to see how they are using the terms when we get into ambiguous territory. Sometimes I assume I know which Tuesday they are referring to, but that can be wrong, and then things get really confused.

Bottom line—use actual dates if you really want to be clear. This is especially true in emails, where there might be a lag time before the person sees your email, and then you have no idea which Tuesday is the day in question.

“I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today,” said Wimpy. But he was always able to get out of paying, because he never indicated which Tuesday he meant. Sneaky bugger.

I just knew this would spark an interesting discussion. Thanks all!

@Harp I likes that.

A little off topic but this reminds me of a time that I was telling my mother a story about our neighbors that live down the street. She said to me “you mean up the street?”. Up, down? Is there really a difference?
She confused the heck out of me and I haven’t been the same since.

Wait..What? You had me until that second to last paragraph

If I understand correctly if I was speaking of something that happen this week but the day already passed I say “this past” Tuesday. Speaking of a Tuesday from a week prior to this one I would say “last” Tuesday. So I don’t know who I just agreed with if anybody.

I have a vivid memory of being lectured by by my late Aunt Ena, more than 50 years ago, on the difference between “evening” and “afternoon”. The latter, she said, was after noon but before 6.00 pm. The former was after 6.00 pm but before bedtime. Anything after that was “night”. The lesson stuck, mainly because my sister, my cousin and I, on holiday with the said aunt in Tobago, missed going to the cinema because we forgot the time while playing on the beach.