> Things are also a bit complicated where I live by the fact that 'this weekend' and 'next weekend' follow the same pattern as I described before, but in a way consistent with calendar weeks beginning on Monday rather than Sunday— even though calendars here conventionally start the week on Sunday and usage of 'this <day of week>' and 'next <day of week>' align with that.
My sense is that weekend nomenclature is even more confusing.
If it is Monday, and I say "next weekend", I'd wager there's a greater proportion of English speakers (at least) who would understand that to mean the two day period that starts in roughly another 4 days. That is: "next weekend" referred to at any time before (possibly) Friday means "the next one to occur", not "the one that is a part of the next calendar week". By contrast, on Friday "next weekend" pretty clearly means the two days that will occur in about 7 days, rather than "this weekend" meaning the two days that start in less than 24 hours.
Yeah, I think the weekend nomenclature is definitely trickier.
> If it is Monday, and I say "next weekend", I'd wager there's a greater proportion of English speakers (at least) who would understand that to mean the two day period that starts in roughly another 4 days.
To my ear, this is wrong, but I think you're right that it's more common. I think 'this weekend' and 'next weekend' are fuzzier than 'this Tuesday' and 'next Tuesday' because of that misalignment I pointed to before, where 'the weekend' is thought of as a thing that comes at the end of a week, but how we write it most calendars where I live is as a thing that bookends the week on each side.
But I couldn't take up the usage you describe even if I moved to a region where it was predominant, I think. How could I abide a situation where 'this Saturday' occurs during 'next weekend'? That's simply madness. :D
(It's amazing how much we humans manage to communicate with something as messy as natural language-- perhaps especially amazing to programmer-brained people like me, who take some comfort and ease from the simplicity and neatness of the artificial formalisms we work with every day.)
i think the difference is the frequency with which it is necessary to differentiate "this" and "next".
for weekends, most of the time most people are talking in ways that make "this weekend" "the next weekend to occur". so here, "this" and "next" are effectively synonymous.
for days of the week, however, it is more often important to differentiate "this Thursday" (occuring in a couple of days from now, during this week) and "next thursday" (occuring in more than 7 days from now, as part of next week).
If my hunch is correct, it would make conventions highly dependent on social scheduling frequency in a culture.
My sense is that weekend nomenclature is even more confusing.
If it is Monday, and I say "next weekend", I'd wager there's a greater proportion of English speakers (at least) who would understand that to mean the two day period that starts in roughly another 4 days. That is: "next weekend" referred to at any time before (possibly) Friday means "the next one to occur", not "the one that is a part of the next calendar week". By contrast, on Friday "next weekend" pretty clearly means the two days that will occur in about 7 days, rather than "this weekend" meaning the two days that start in less than 24 hours.