"Next" day problem. Can someone explain it?

Factual Questions
1

I am constantly running into this problem. Say it is friday, and someone says “I will meet you next monday”. What day are they refering to?

To me it means monday in 3 days time (ie the next one that will occur)

To alot of other people it means the one in 10 days time (the monday after “this” monday.). They argue that if the monday in 3 days is “this monday” then it could not also be “next monday” and hence the “next” one is the one after “this” one.

This seems absurd to me and seems to twist is concept of next which simply means “nearest or adjacent in place or position”.
i.e. the next monday is the nearest monday to occur in relation to the current day.

Which is correct?

Christian

2

Either “next monday” or “monday” is appropriate because in that scenario, monday IS the NEXT monday. The following monday would be “monday week”. I hope this clears it up.

Cheers,
Ross

3

I always use ‘this Monday’ to mean the one in three days time. I tend to use ‘Monday next’ to indicate it’s the monday after.

4

Technically the week ends on Sunday so “next monday” said on a Friday would naturally imply the the first monday in the next week. I believe that it is vastly more common to simply say “monday”, though.

5

This is more of an IMHO. Next monday can mean the nearest future monday or sometimes, the second nearest (as in, “not this monday, but next monday”). It’s just one of those pointlessly confusing things. It’s best to get the date if it’s important.

6

‘Next Monday’ is the one after the one coming up, i.e next week. The one coming up is simply ‘Monday’, why add the ‘next’ if not to signify it’s meant as the one after the one coming up?

7

Because it’s the NEXT one. Right there! Next to you…

The one the week after is “Monday week”.
Monday week
(next) Monday
-NOW-
Last Monday
Last Monday week

8

OK, i accept there may be some regional differences in understanding of this. I apologise if i sounded somewhat matter of fact. My statement was based on the fact that i have never encountered any confusion on this in my neck of the woods and the usage is commonplace and to the best of my knowledge accepted as i defined it. Any Brits out there say if you disagree from a UK perspective, obviously i can’t comment on any other countries.

My logical understanding is that it is commonplace for the immediately next Monday to be referred to as simply Monday. Admittedly this often requires clarification to ascertain if the speaker is referring to Monday coming or Monday past, nevertheless i’d never expect anyone to refer to Monday coming as anything other than simply ‘Monday’ or possibly ‘This Monday’.

Now, if we accept that the next coming Monday is simply ‘Monday’ then ‘Next Monday’ logically means the “nearest or adjacent in place or position” to that Monday, i.e. next week.

The problem with the chronology you have listed (to my logic anyway) is there is no current Monday. You have last Monday and next Monday but no ‘This Monday’.

It’s probably worth noting that here ‘Monday Week’ is understood but rarely used. ‘A week on Monday’ would be common but i rarely hear ‘Monday week’,

9

I’ve run into people who misunderstand this so I always double check but predominantly, “next <…>” almost always means “the one after this <…>” when speaking about time and “the first available <…>” when speaking about geometric positioning, physical objects or finite slots.

“To get to my house you have to turn at the next light, get on the bus, get off at the next stop, so I guess I’ll see you next weekend. I wish it would have been sooner, but this weekend I am going to my in-laws. Oh I gotta go, I’m next in line…”

Tomorrow is “this weekend”, today is “this week”, three days from today is “next week”, and eight days from today is “next weekend”. The only time I’ve seen people confused is when specific days are mentioned (especially monday), “next monday” (the 20th) is not the monday of next week, it’s the monday after “this monday” (the 13th).

I would agree that Monday the 13th was “Next Monday” IF and ONLY IF everything else was used in this manner as well. So tomorrow would be “next weekend”, “this weekend” would have been six days ago, and the weekend at the end of next week is the “weekend after next”. Yet nobody uses the language this way, ergo to be consistent “next monday” will have to be monday the 20th.

10

In case it is not perfectly clear to our Commonwealth cousins, here in the States the expressions “Monday week,” or “Monday next” are never used by native Merkins.

As one such, I’m in the camp that says that “next Monday” means the next Monday, not the one ten days from now, which is “the Monday after next.” Thus the phrase “next Monday” has the same meaning as simply “Monday.”

However, this is a slightly unusual example because the week break comes between today and the day in question. If you said to me on Monday, “I’ll see you next Thursday,” I’d probably take that to mean the one 10 days away, not the one the one three days later.

However, any such expression will inevitably be liable to some ambiguity, and no really hard and fast rules can be asserted, with this possible exception: when I say simply, “I’ll see you on [day],” I mean the very next occurrence of that day, no matter whether it’s tomorrow or six days away.

11

Just to be clear, I’m not being snarky, I just want to clarify a little because I’ve never actually gotten anybody who does this to explain this to me:

  • Would you call tomorrow “next saturday”?
  • Would you call tomorrow “next weekend”?
  • If I said “this Monday” with a verb in present or future tense, would you understand it to be Monday the 13th?
  • So would you say that “next Monday” is synonymous with “this Monday” for you?
  • So which week is “next week” and is it the same week as “this week”?
12

** - Would you call tomorrow “next saturday”?**

No, because tomorrow is this Saturday. I would probably just call it “Saturday.”

** - Would you call tomorrow “next weekend”?**

No, for the same reason. BTW, did you notice where I said, “However, this is a slightly unusual example because the week break comes between today and the day in question”?

** - If I said “this Monday” with a verb in present or future tense, would you understand it to be Monday the 13th?**

Yes, I would probably understand it. But I wouldn’t use the expression myself, because that Monday isn’t part of the current week, i.e. this week.

** - So would you say that “next Monday” is synonymous with “this Monday” for you?**

No. On Friday, “this Monday” is the Monday just past. Therefore, “this Monday” might be considered synonymous with “last Monday” by some people. (Yes, this is confusing.)

** - So which week is “next week” and is it the same week as “this week”?**

Next week is the week that starts on the very next Monday.

I’m not dogmatic about any of this, nor will I attempt to claim that I am and always have been 100% consistent about it. Nor, I daresay, could you or most other ordinary speakers and writers. Much depends on situations and context, and occasional misunderstandings are usually easily discovered and of little consequence.

13

To me, “next Monday” has always meant not the nearest Monday, but the one after that. In the case above, that would the Monday in ten days’ time. However, I always end up clarifying by using the lengthy “not this Monday, but next Monday,” or “not this Monday, but the following Monday,” instead of the simple “next Monday,” because I do know there is variation on how people use these words.

14

Well, I was just trying to understand what is your basis for calling this monday “next monday” - is it because it is the immediate following monday or is it because it is next week. The way I understand your reply is that it is the latter, since the immediate following saturday is not “next saturday” to you, because I assume it is this week.

To me “this” means closest in the temporal direction of the verb tense and “next” means the one after the monday in context. So if you said “I went fishing last monday, but I am going skydiving next monday” I would interpret that as two consequtive mondays. If you said “I am going fishing this monday, but I am going skydiving next monday” I would still interpret that as two consequtive mondays. However, if you simply tell me “I’m going to go fishing next monday”, I would probably assume you meant the first monday more than a week away.

15

groman: In case I haven’t been sufficiently explicit, those days that are part of the current week (this week), whether they have passed or are yet to come, are this Monday, Friday, or whatever. I think that’s a pretty commonsense distinction. Of course, the closer one gets to the week break, the less likely one would be to use “next.” I.e., on Sunday, I probably wouldn’t refer to the next day as “next Monday.”

But what about you?

  • On Friday, would you refer to the day before as “last Thursday”?

  • Or would that mean the one eight days earlier?

  • On Friday, what does “this Thursday” mean? Yesterday or six days from now?

16

I seem to use a mix of all usages presented here, and they mean different things at different times based on the context. Sometimes if the context isn’t good enough, one can add qualifiers, or choose different usages. “This Monday.” “This upcoming Monday.” “This next Monday.”

17

When I lived in SE Georgia, there was a very useful phrase: “Monday next”, which meant two Mondays from now. No one’s heard of it seemingly in California, but it does come in handy.

18

I was going to say the same thing. In America, you never, ever, ever hear “Monday week” and would get bizarre looks and people asking what the hell you meant if you used it (except by those who watched a lot of British TV or so on).

I virtually always clarify this way: “this coming Monday” or “next Monday, not this one” or “not this Monday, but the one after it” just because there is so much ambiguity.

19

We don’t say “<day> week” in America. If we did, it might avoid some of this confusion. It gets me too, and I always avoid using it if I can. Instead, I’ll say “Monday the 13th”, or “this coming Monday”, if I mean Monday in two days.

If there’s still any confusion, I say, “Not the Monday over a sennight hence” :smiley:

20

Someone didn’t read my post.