If today is Friday, how many days away is “next weekend”?
What if today is Monday?
etc.?
Next weekend would be seven days from now using your example (eight if you believe the weekend starts on Saturday.
So today is Oct. 24 making Oct 25-27 this weekend (or this coming weekend). Next weekend will be Nov 1-3.
At least that’s how I was taught and how I use the terms.
There’s no universal consensus on ‘next’ with regard to dates. I’ve always understood ‘this weekend’ to be the one that’s coming (or that we are in, if it’s said on Sat/Sun) and ‘next weekend’ to be the next one after this weekend, but not everybody sees it like that.
To be safe in case there’s vagueness in the local usage, I go with the date(s) instead of the “this” and “next” terminology. But I concur with the preceding posts that “next” comes after “this” and that “this” is either the one you’re in or the one just coming up. Even the “weekend” can be fuzzy since some people think it starts on Thursday!
Your “what if today is Monday?” version pushes this idea to the limit, though. I’d have to ask what date was meant, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I were to mean the next Friday or Saturday by saying “next weekend.” I’d most likely go with “this” and probabaly specify “not this but next” if I meant more than five days from now.
I agree it’s complicated. I don’t think a question stated on Monday, “What did you do this weekend?” would seem at all odd and clearly means what did you do yesterday and the day before (unless perhaps it involves a timer traveler). If this were followed by the question, “Are you doing the same next weekend?” it would seem obvious the questioner meant the weekend beginning in 5 or 6 days. Even without the preceding question, I might well interpret “next weekend” to mean 6 days hence on a Monday.
On the other hand, if “What are you doing next weekend?” were asked me on a Friday morning, I would assume we were talking about the weekend beginning in 7 or 8 days.
So when does “next weekend” move from the one coming up to the one after that? I’ll have to to with 10:32 a.m. Wednesday 
The basic idea is people often think of the current week they’re in as a unit. So in their mind, “next weekend” refers to the weekend in next week not the weekend in the current week.
Along the same lines, people have different mental images of what a week is (beyond agreeing it has seven days). People have different ideas of what day a week begins and ends on so even people who agree with the above concept might have different ideas about when next weekend is.
It all seems a bit odd, until you consider - we do the same sort of thing in other contexts - for example (at the time of writing):
“This Christmas” means Christmas this year - 2013
“Next Christmas” means Christmas 2014
But even in January 2014 and maybe beyond, “This Christmas” will still mean Christmas 2013
Turns out my husband and I are opposite on this - I use the “this weekend” phrase and he generally doesn’t. We try to keep that in mind when talking, but occasionally I’ll find myself saying, "do you mean ‘this next’ or ‘next next?’ "
Same thing in our house. My wife insists, quite wrongly of course, the ‘next’ weekend is the one coming up.
I usually say “this coming weekend” for clarity when I mean “this next”. The date is a nice touch, but I usually have no idea of the date.
The unit concept, I think, is more sensible when talking about a month than a week, since each month has its own name, and no argument about when it begins. Still, “the nineteenth instant” is better left in the nineteenth century.
This is my usage too, except that I recognize the ambiguity, and I therefore ALWAYS clarify my words by adding something like, “That’s nine days from now.” Even if people count days differently (like whether or not today is included in the count) I find that it is adequate for pointing out that we are referring to “the Friday that is slightly more than a week away.”
The odd thing is, it’s a usage that only (or at least almost exclusively) applies to weekends specifically.
If a band is coming to town “next month”, that means they’re coming in November… if it’s “this month” it’s October. Though if they’re coming “in the next month”, that means roughly 30 days from today regardless of what month it’s in. Something happening next year is expected to happen in 2014, not 2015.
Next weekend is odd and confusing, but we all do it. You’ll often hear it explained out because of this, though… esp. on a Monday, as you said “When does team x play team y?” “Next weekend — not this coming weekend but the following one.”
I suppose that to a degree it does show up in specific days. “they’re coming to town next Wednesday” could be the upcoming Wednesday or the following one, it’s not clear.
Though on Monday, it’d be more likely to go with “the day after tomorrow” to be clearer and avoid this same issue…
I disagree - it’s something that applies to many kinds of repeating events in general - for example, Christmas (per post #7) - birthdays are probably the same - and also other sequences such as software version releases (where there is also ambiguity over ‘this version’ and ‘the next version’)
Excellent point. If it is already November, and someone asks, “What about next Thanksgiving?”, then they probably mean the one that is a year away, rather than the one that is just weeks away. But I would definitely ask to be sure.
May as well throw in my 2c. I parse the phrases somewhat like “this week’s end,” and “next week’s end.” This week would always be the week I’m in (Monday-Sunday), while next week is what starts on the first Monday that’s not today. I do that because it works the same way whether you say “next week” or “next weekend.”
If it’s Monday, I wouldn’t typically say “what did you do this weekend?” Instead, I would ask, “what did you do over the weekend?” or something similar.
And if someone says “next weekend” at any point early in a week, I expect clarification.
When you will encounter the most difficulty by assuming the wrong one.
I’ve been reading the word next so many times in this thread that it’s starting to look weird to me and I’m questioning whether or not it’s even a real word.
That being said, this weekend on a Monday is ambiguous because it could mean the previous weekend or the upcoming weekend. I think once Tuesday hits, any reference of “this weekend” can be safely assumed to mean upcoming weekend, and if someone asked me on Tuesday or Wednesday what I did “this weekend” it would be kind of odd.
Next weekend on a Monday, however, to me, would always mean the weekend that is 2 weekends away.
Yes - and in early December, if anyone mentions ‘this Thanksgiving’, they may still be thinking of the one just gone (although the context is likely to make it less ambiguous anyway, as they are less likely to be asking about plans for something that has already happened).
I think it applies when there’s not a different name for each occurance, like each month has a different name, each year, etc. So, any day in October, “next month” means November – even on today is Oct 31. Similary, any day in 2013, “next year” means 2014 – even on Dec 31, 2013.
However, when the event has the same name (like next weekend, next Tuesday, next Christmas) there can be ambiguity. In January 2014, “next Halloween” probably means Oct 31, 2014. However, on Oct 30, 2014, “next Halloween” almost certainly means Oct 31, 2015.
PS - bernanke, welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards! I’m glad you followed my suggestion and posted, glad to have you with us. – Dex
My call is that “next” weekend becomes “this” weekend on Monday. It balances out because that’s the same day the old “this” weekend becomes “last” weekend.