this weekend

[Michael Israel]

My cousin has asked me for help with a problem that she suspects
is due to regional variation. The question concerns the denotation of "this" and "next"
in the phrases "this/next weekend". She writes:

> My boss and I were having an argument over the meaning of "this/next weekend."
> It was the middle of the week, and I referred to "next weekend" meaning the one in couple days.
> He understood me to mean the one over a week away and then insisted that I mispoke.
> I said that there are regional understandings of this/next weekend and
> that we just used the phrases differently.  He thought I was crazy.
>

Is anyone on the list familiar with this sort of variation? Based on my own experience,
I would assume that it is the boss who has the strange intuitions.

My cousin is from Chapel Hill, NC. I'm from Berkeley, CA. And the crazy
boss is (presumably) from Pittsburgh, PA, where my cousin has just taken a job.

thanks,
Michael