From BoingBoing:Here’s a test: let’s say a meeting, originally scheduled for Wednesday, has been moved forward two days. What is the new day of the meeting?
If you think it’s Friday, you imagine time as something you move through. If you think it’s Monday, you think of time as something that passes by you.
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The researchers then claim that Friday people are angrier.
I’m kind of shocked that anyone would think it was Monday. Interesting. I, personally, am not an angry person, though, so I don’t agree with that part of it. Interesting study…I’d like to hear more details about it.
OK…read some of the comments. I was so “time moves forward” in my thinking that I was imagining people saying that the meeting would be the next monday (skipping the weekend), not the monday before the wed in question. Which totally makes no sense, and I didn’t see how anyone could see it that way. But now I get it. Seems to be somewhat related to corporate linguistics.
I would think it would have more to do with being from a culture that reads from left to right. When I was working it out in my head, I pictured the week layed out as M-T-W-T-F-S-S. Starting at W and moving forward (that is, the direction in which I was already moving) puts me at Friday.
As I think about it though, I can see how somebody that was excited about attending the meeting would think of the "forward’ (as opposed to "pushed back) as meaning Monday.
Something that moves forward is doing something at a later time than when it started. Like an army marching forward. Every step is later than the previous.
To move forward in time is to move toward the future. To move back in time is to move toward the past.
Well, obviously the terminology is ambiguous. I was merely trying to point that out. Although if someone told me that a deadline had been moved forward, I would ask for the specific date of the new deadline. It only seems prudent.