“This Wednesday” vs. “Next Wednesday”

@Entomophagist ... Very true, Tuesday week means "a week from Tuesday" in Suthren!

"How about never? Does never work for you?" Quote, possibly inexact, from a cartoon in, I think, The New Yorker.

I agree about the structure you laid out Howard, on a mathematical calendrical level. However, we have to allow for fuzzy logic. I think many people have an understood "of next week" in the phrase "next Wednesday," especially if it's Monday or Tuesday.

Thanks for not being a pain in the Yiddish.

The main point is "next Wednesday" is ambigous; it just comes down to who is using it. If someone does use it, one needs to clarify: "this Wednesday" or "Wednesday week" ?

Yes, there's occasional ambiguity, but that happens in language: "I met a funny man man the other day." "Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?"In any case, it's usually used in a spoken context and easily resolved - "Do you mean this coming Wednesday or the one after?"

@Wheelye With so much international emailing, it is just a matter of avoiding ambiguity. In the same way it is better to avoid ambiguous date formats such as 03/04/2016 and always to spell out the month: March 4, 2016 or 4th March 2016. Similarly if one simply says "this Wednesday" or "Wednesday week" or in an email adds the day as "Wed 12th", then all is clear.

Depends on the point of the person asking and the person answering.
If you say this Wednesday, I would assume this coming Wednesday; especially if today is Sunday and you are conveying some info as to an event that will happen.
I have been a teacher in Japan for the past 15 years ,and for the Japanese , it's pretty hard for them to discern future events as well as coming events in English. So for them everything is last or now. This past weekend is a pain for them, the weekend after next goes right over their head.
Please, if you are going to convey this Wednesday, convey it so there is no confusion. This past Wednesday, or next Wednesday.

The issue here is because the days of weeks are in blocks of weeks, there seems to be a confusion because of a Wednesday being placed into a future week, If we had a line of poles across 2 paddocks say 7 in each and you are standing at the first pole, the next pole is the second pole, not the second pole in the next paddock, same as if you are on Monday the next Wednesday is 2 days hence not Wednesday of next week. Similar to the earlier reference of next train, no other units of measurement places next as anything but the very next item, the options to clarify what seems to be an incorrect evolution of the term here is, next is next, a day in next week is a day of next week or as was known previously E.G. Wednesday week, meaning Wednesday of next week. or give the specific calendar date to avoid confusion.

Being in the recruiting business, I learned early on that this causes a huge amount of confusion. Further complicating matters is the insistence that "next" needs to be used. Completely unnecessary. For instance, today is Tuesday. So I might say, "my daughter is graduating on Saturday." There is no need to say "this" Saturday, since it is implicit. Conversely, If I said, "my daughter graduated on Saturday." it is implicit that I am talking about the past Saturday which is obvious as the sentence is in the past tense.

Simpler is always easier and less fraught with confusion, so if your daughter is graduating on Saturday, there it is. I often ask people, "what is the difference between Saturday and this coming saturday?" The answer of course is there is no difference. So why bother with superfluous words?

Of course if I say, "next Saturday" obviously that means the Saturday after the upcoming Saturday. So the question to the confused person might be, "What is the difference between Saturday and next Saturday?" QED

"Next" means "next", always. When we say, "This Wednesday", it is short for "Wednesday this week". "Wednesday next week" can be shortened to "Wednesday next", but not "Next Wednesday" as that means, literally, the next Wednesday, chronologically.

Absolute rubbish

I posted this question about a year ago and since there are now 23 comments and my birthday is on the 23rd I thought I should chime in. Thanks to everybody for commenting. I just read through all of them. I have come to a couple conclusions and thought I'd share them.

First when we talk about this or next we are elevating from a structure of days in one week to days in a series of weeks. That is, if I'm only talking about days I can say on Wednesday. I think it's safe to say that on Wednesday means Wednesday of the week I am currently in. It doesn't matter if Wednesday has passed or not. However inside this structure of consecutive weeks we have to contend with the weekend. So if I say on the weekend that I'm going to the movies on Wednesday it obviously means of the coming week. I hope I would be speaking clearly if I said the same thing on a given Wednesday through possibly Monday. As someone pointed out if you get too close to that movie night it becomes ridiculous to speak in terms of weeks and you have to just say tomorrow or yesterday.

For disclosure I am a non-southern American. While I enjoy the grammatical efficiency of such southernisms as y'all and Wednesday week, I cannot bring myself to use them. I'd feel like a poser.

For the person who suggested we think of polls in a paddock I would like to suggest refining the analogy so that each poll of the seven in one paddock is somehow differentiated from all the others. Then restate the result. I don't think it would be the same as when all poles are identical. A further problem with the analogy of course since I was just talking about weekends is we don't have any special language introduced about the polls that are close to the border between the two paddocks.

I find myself rarely saying this Wednesday or next Wednesday. Since I posted this question I have tried to pay attention to my own usage. I tend to say Wednesday of next week. If I say this Wednesday I might be more inclined to add a little and say Wednesday of this week.

I think I have an idea of how people in Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand would deal with this issue. How do people in India deal with this?

My view in the "next" vs "this" confusion is that it's lazy English that had become common usage that's caused it.
Clearly the dictionary definition of next is the next occurrence. There's no latitude for which week you're in to confuse things.

My view is that it started as "this week Thursday" and "next week Thursday" and the week part got dropped as happens very often in English (shop "open 24 hours" strictly means after a day it's opened it's closed. "A day" got lost somewhere!)

I suppose the answer is to be very clear on what is said and not assume that local idioms are understood by everyone.

Another example is time where half three can be half past three or half to three (half past two) in some areas.

English is ever evolving!!

Thanks for sharing “This Wednesday” vs. “Next Wednesday”
Also read Fun Facts about Wednesday