Path: ...!2.eu.feeder.erje.net!feeder.erje.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Athel Cornish-Bowden Newsgroups: sci.lang Subject: Next ambiguity Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2024 18:11:55 +0200 Lines: 18 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net NKNEiF9MMJtKaYMHutpjDA3SjxS8wVmZB065XGFRGCTsqj0Hi7 Cancel-Lock: sha1:MwI2ESZ+pSda0S4feVT5wIE0l2s= sha256:3OAhkllDr+N9z8RMPOmlBOJFDDqRYLHy54aODnQ9VsE= User-Agent: Unison/2.2 Bytes: 1441 I'm wondering how common ambiguity in the word "next" is. My first wife, when I was driving and she was giving directions, would say, for example, "take the next right", which we would understand differently; for me the next right would mean right at the intersection we are just coming to. For her it meant the one after it. There was a similar ambiguity for weeks. If I say "next week" I mean the week that starts tomorrow, Monday 22nd July: for her it would mean the week that starts on the 29th. In case it's relevant, I mention that my ex-wife is from California, one of the few native adult Californians that I ever came across when I lived in California. -- Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly in England until 1987.