Let’s imagine it’s currently Wednesday the 1st. Does “next Saturday” mean Saturday the 4th (the next Saturday to occur) or Saturday the 11th (the Saturday of next week)?
I’m a firm believer that “Next Saturday” refers to the upcoming one, however, I understand most people do not, therefore it’s easiest to ask how many days, or the specific date. I.E. Saturday the 15th, Weekend of the 15th, in 12 days.
Saturday is Saturday. Next Saturday is not. Otherwise why add the modifier?
coming Saturday = Saturday 4th
next Saturday = Saturday 11th
It’s the same with “bi-weekly”. Does that mean twice every week, or once every 2 weeks?
There’s a bunch of ambiguous stuff in the English language. The only real solution is just avoid ambiguity in the first place by not using the phrase
Saturday the 4th is part of “this week” so it’s “this Saturday”.
Saturday the 11th is part of “next week” so it’s “next Saturday”.
Otherwise “next Saturday” and “Saturday next week” would mean different things.
Yeah, it’d be great if that were the case. But Saturday the 4th is also just the next Saturday in terms of Saturdays.
It’s an ambiguous term and so always needs clarify gbas you and the person you’re talking to may be thinking along different lines.
If somebody says to me next Sunday I just assumed they mean the next Sunday to come around. Especially because there is a lot of ambiguity about when the week begins and ends. American software likes to default to calling Saturday the final day of the week, and Sunday the first day of the following week.
Technically “next Sunday” is the nearest Sunday (eg “sunday of next week”), however next Saturday is not (because it’s the Saturday of next week"). This assumes we all accept that Sunday is considered the start of the week - which isn’t always the case nowadays.
It’s chaos! But I’m just pointing out that there’s a wired logic to it, which I assume at some point made more sense than it does in our time.