On Tue, Sep 6, 2016 at 10:31 AM, Phil Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
> Paul Gilmartin wrote: > > The way people casually abbreviate dates is subjective and > context-sensitive: > > No kidding. How about just this: > "When is the party?" > "Next Saturday." > > Now...today is Tuesday. Is "Next Saturday" in four days, or 11? > If today were Friday, I'm sure you wouldn't think "Next Saturday" meant > tomorrow, and wouldn't feel the need to clarify. > If today were Sunday, I'm pretty sure you *would* think it meant "in six > days". Or at least would ask which I meant. > Where is the boundary? > In your mind! :-) . I both despise and love English. I despise it when I'm trying to communicate clearly. I love it when I want to "creatively" understand what another person meant. In regards to the above, I tend to say something like: "Saturday of next week, that is about 11 days" or "Saturday of this week". But then there are the people who think that the week begins on Monday (like the people who made the ISO weeknum definition), and so Sunday becomes a point of contention. > > Is this just an English vagueness, or is it universal? My father would > have known (PhD in linguistics, fluent in seven languages), but he isn't > around to ask, alas. > I read, long ago, in Byte magazine (anybody else remember that?) that the oriental languages, in particular Japanese, are deliberately vague so that people can come to a "consensus of meaning" without either party admitting that they misspoke. Me, I prefer speaking in APL. > -- > > ...phsiii > -- Unix: Some say the learning curve is steep, but you only have to climb it once. -- Karl Lehenbauer Unicode: http://xkcd.com/1726/ Maranatha! <>< John McKown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
