this weekend

[Dennis R. Preston]

Obviously such difficulties are all around, and it's pretty clear
that "this coming weekend" and "this last weekend" are (not always
successful) attempts to disambiguate. My wife and I are different
"next" speakers, but, as arnold suggested, I doubt if is the fault of
her nonstandard Milwaukee and my standard Louisville speech
upbringings.

dInIs

>On Wed, 21 Aug 2002, Michael Israel wrote:
>
>>  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 intuition is with the boss. On Wednesday, "next weekend" for me is 10
>days away. "This weekend" is the one 3 days away.
>
>Michigan 1966-1986; Chicago 1986-1996; Boston since.
>
>-- Steve Kl.