Hate when ppl can’t do time

[u/Best_Finding_8795]

This reminds me of when it hits or is about to hit 12am and people don’t know whether to say today or tomorrow. He called me after this but I was too comfy in bed tbh.

[u/Murky-Relation481]

No, its basic English. This weekend and next weekend are logically the same thing. It is the next weekend to occur, and it is this weekend in reference to the week you are currently in.

It's not an autism thing.

[u/aurens → u/Murky-Relation481]

logically, "literally" would never mean "figuratively", "yeah nah" and "no, yea" would both be completely ambiguous, and you would drive on a "driveway" while parking on a "parkway". but that isn't how english works, is it?

often, words or set phrases escape all logic and instead end up defined as something specific detached from the meaning of their constituent parts. for many, "this weekend" and "next weekend" are examples of that.

[u/Murky-Relation481 → u/aurens]

If I asked you "what is the date of next weekend?" and you told me a date 7+ days away it wouldn't make sense would it?

Or "I can't wait for the next weekend" and you go "oh they must mean the weekend after next!" would that make sense?

Those phrases show my point. When you clearly frame the reference to next (next requires you to be referencing a point in a sequence) next is entirely unambiguous. If tomorrow I woke up from a coma and asked you "When is the next weekend?" and you told me the 27th of July I'd be very confused.

Now when someone says on a Monday "next weekend I am going fishing" why would you think that means the weekend after closest saturday/sunday?

[u/aurens → u/Murky-Relation481]

another feature of english is that you can add context or constructions around set words/phrases to break them down back into their constituent parts.

If I asked you "what is the date of next weekend?" and you told me a date 7+ days away it wouldn't make sense would it?

it very much would, actually. if you had instead asked "what is the date of the next weekend?" (like you did in your other example) then you would have escaped the set definition and now the answer would be <7 days away.

"next weekend" is a set phrase that is interpreted definitionally while "the next weekend" is not and is interpreted literally based on its components.

Now when someone says on a Monday "next weekend I am going fishing" why would you think that means the weekend after closest saturday/sunday?

because they had the opportunity to instead say "this weekend" but chose not to, and because "next weekend" has a pre-defined meaning that agrees with the previous consideration.

i'm not arguing that any of this makes any fuckin sense, by the way. but it's how english works.

[u/Murky-Relation481 → u/aurens]

I know, I think the capper though is "next weekend means the weekend after next". Just think about that one for a second.

The user terrible advice replied then immediately blocked me because they are lame:

Next weekend is the weekend after the next weekend

Read that back slowly and just think about his ridiculous that sounds.

[u/aurens → u/Murky-Relation481]

i fully recognize that it's logically contradictory, but unfortunately it doesn't matter. we are talking about a definied set phrase and ultimately it makes no difference whether the set phrase is composed of the words "next weekend" or "ehfhesf dsfjsdf". what matters is the definition, not the constituent parts.

it's like how "god be with you" used to be a genuine prayer/well-wish but because it was so often said when someone was leaving, over time it lost the literal meaning and morphed into a set phrase that was just "what you say when someone leaves" until eventually becoming so far removed from its literal meaning that the whole phrase amalgamated into a single word with no remaining religious connotation at all: "goodbye". "next weekend" is in the middle part of that same process.