If you are telling a story about how you spent a particular holiday or event, describing the year it happened is straightforward. You could say, for example, that you spent Thanksgiving at your Uncle Fred’s house in 1998. But what about New Year’s? If you are telling the story about what you were doing for New Year’s between December 31st 1998 and January 1st 1999, which year is the correct year to use in this sentence? “I spent New Year’s in Times Square back in 199_ .” Should you say New Year’s of 1998, or New Year’s of 1999?
This is probably better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
It appears to be confusing mainly because you’re not using the full phrase. In that sentence, “New Year’s” refers to New Year’s Eve, so it would be 1998. It would only be 1999 if you were talking about New Year’s Day.
If someone says “New Year’s 1999” then I assume they mean these pair of days: New Year’s Eve 12/31/1998, and Near Year’s Day 1/1/1999. And the New Year they are celebrating, in either case, is 1999.
If they specifically said “New Year’s Eve 1999” then that might be a little bit vague, but I’d assume they meant 12/31/1998.
When you’re talking about New Year’s, you specify it by the new year. You’d only specify it by the old year if you were celebrating Old Year’s Day.
And yet, when we say something like “I went to a party on Saturday evening” or “I went to a party on Saturday night” we usually name the day-just-ending, not the day-just-about-to-begin (or even the day-just-already-begun). If the event continues past midnight, and even if the event begins past midnight, we usually name the day with day-just-ending-or-just-ended.
Hey! I went out and watched the lunar eclipse last Tuesday night, at 2:30 in the morning!
Most people would understand that (I think) as being after midnight of the evening of Tuesday, i.e., early Wednesday morning. Anyone agree with that? Anyone disagree? Should we have a poll?
Yes, you are correct.
“I got a late start Friday but still partied from 1 am til 5 am”–everyone knows the 5 am is Saturday. Even though the entire range is the same day, no one would think it means 1 am til 5 am of Friday.
Unless you’re celebrating New Year’s Eve rather than New Year’s Day. And on New Year’s Day, you’re sleeping it off.