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To my mind if you say "next week" then that refers to the very next week that comes along after this week. You wouldn't mean the first week in the next month (unless it WAS also the first week in the next month). So if you say "next X-day" the next should refer not to the week but to the very next day of that name that comes along. Where is the word or concept "week" in the phrase "next Tuesday"? The next applies to the day, not the week. It means next Tuesday, not next week on Tuesday. No matter what you say I will continue to stubbornly insist on using the most logical meaning.  (and yes I meant to split that infinitive)
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Carpal Tunnel
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But I've never totally missed something from confusion about it, but probably because people use dates. Which, by the way, the entire world does sensibly, EXCEPT the US, with our M/D/Y nonsense instead of the logical D/M/Y. :0) Not to go off on a tangent or anything, but, D/M/Y might be more logical but it's totally backwards. The only sensible way of doing it is Y/M/D. That way it sorts your dates nicely in alphnumeric order. Speaking of lilliputian, the computer terms for these date ordering schemes are: little-endian for the European dd/mm/yyyy, big-endian for the Asian yyyy/mm/dd, and middle-endian for the USn mm/dd/yyyy. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big-endian[/url]YCLIU[/url]
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Joined: Feb 2008
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I completely agree with Faldage.
We use the British system of D.M.Y , which IS more logical than the US system of M.D.Y, but it does make MOST sense to record it as YEAR.MM.DD, especially when naming computer files.
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Well I still think that to be totally unambiguous and avoid misunderstandings man, you want a lot from a language...
formerly known as etaoin...
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Y/M/D
LOL. These are all conventions. And some are better for some things than others. But you might as well argue that a 64-bit, unsigned integer representing the milliseconds from some arbitrarily chosen date, say, January 1, 1970, is the best ... Why not champion a base-60 calendar system?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Feb 2008
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Y/M/D
LOL. These are all conventions. And some are better for some things than others. But you might as well argue that a 64-bit, unsigned integer representing the milliseconds from some arbitrarily chosen date, say, January 1, 1970, is the best ... Why not champion a base-60 calendar system?  ...because we're not talking about 64bit whatzits or base 60 calendars, we're talking about the one we're stuck with, and the most logical way to refer to a date from it.
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and the most logical way to refer to a date from it.Oh, what's my favorite? Why didn't you say? The best way is ISO 8601 which Faldo referred to: YYYY-MM-DD link. (It's an international standard. Can't get much better than that.)
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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> To my mind if you say "next week" then that refers to the very next week that comes along after this week. You wouldn't mean the first week in the next month (unless it WAS also the first week in the next month). So if you say "next X-day" the next should refer not to the week but to the very next day of that name that comes along. (?)
We keep this one clear by distinguishing for instance: "coming Saturday " from " next Saturday " ( e.i. next week's Saturday).
"aanstaande zaterdag" versus "volgende zaterdag".
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addict
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Where is the word or concept "week" in the phrase "next Tuesday"? The next applies to the day, not the week. It means next Tuesday, not next week on Tuesday. Not this Tuesday (the Tuesday in this week), but next Tuesday. Your way "this Tuesday" and "next Tuesday" mean the same thing - if and only if it's not after Tuesday - no one has brought up the question: "What does "last Tuesday" mean?" My way is, no matter if it's Monday or Wednesday, last Tuesday is still in last week, this Tuesday is still this week, and next Tuesday is in next week. Now if I could just deal with moving appointments up and back, and know which choice is "the latter" without having to think in my head "former/latter, former/latter, former/latter..."
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>Is there rhyme or reason to the way Americans we use 'this' and 'next' in English.
in my experience, no.
QED
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