xkcd #3232: Countdown Standard
Title text:
Anyone who is caught counting ‘three … two … one … zero … GO!’ will be punished with a lifetime of eating only ISO standard food samples.
Transcript:
Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com
Source: https://xkcd.com/3232/
Internal consistency test:
It’s May 2024. You’re talking about February 2025. Given the choice only between “This February” and “Next February”, which do you call it?
You’re right, after some further thought I forgot one rule that I use. Will edit to fix this
To answer your question, I wouldn’t use either, it would be “last February”
I think you misread my comment. February 2025 from the perspective of May 2024 is not “last Thursday” by any definition.
Sorry, it being 2026 now was making be constantly think of 2025 in the past instead of the “future”
I think scale matters. A year is quite a lot longer than a week or two. It’s easy to consider both the next Thursday you’re going to encounter and the one after that as subjectively “soon”. The same can not be said of a month at least nine months away.
I would agree that your ruleset works on a longer timescale, but not on a shorter one. There’s too much ambiguity and crossover for it to work properly. Having exclusivity in definition allows for better communication, especially for something much more personal like something sooner rather than later.