In my previous post, I noted “next” Sunday as the one that will fall on March 16.
To me, the Sunday that will fall on March 9 is “this coming Sunday.” The one that was on March 2 was “this past Sunday.”
The whole “this” vs. “next” thing was possibly the biggest argument between my parents when I was growing up (other than the whole exchange of “Hold the tree straight!” “I AM holding the tree straight” when trying to put the Christmas tree in its stand.)
What say you on the whole “next” vs. “this” when referencing upcoming dates or days gone by?
These days when I visit the East Sac Trader Joe’s–which no matter how crowded it is, always seems to have a staff to patron ratio of about 1:1–I notice that the cashiers are very friendly. Like, serial killer friendly. I assume this is company policy. Saturday night, after a long tiring day of yard projects and kid-wrangling, I was asked by the young cashier whether I had any plans. Nothing much, I said, just going to watch a movie with the wife. “Oh really? What movie do you have?” At this point I was too tired to think of way to avoid telling him what movie, and then since it was an obscure low-budget science fiction flick (“
The Sac Rag 