Next ambiguity

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

I'm wondering how common ambiguity in the word "next" is. My first
wife, when I was driving and she was giving directions, would say, for
example, "take the next right", which we would understand differently;
for me the next right would mean right at the intersection we are just
coming to. For her it meant the one after it. There was a similar
ambiguity for weeks. If I say "next week" I mean the week that starts
tomorrow, Monday 22nd July: for her it would mean the week that starts
on the 29th.

In case it's relevant, I mention that my ex-wife is from California,
one of the few native adult Californians that I ever came across when I
lived in California.

[Antonio Marques]

Post by Athel Cornish-Bowden
I'm wondering how common ambiguity in the word "next" is. My first
wife, when I was driving and she was giving directions, would say, for
example, "take the next right", which we would understand differently;
for me the next right would mean right at the intersection we are just
coming to. For her it meant the one after it. There was a similar
ambiguity for weeks. If I say "next week" I mean the week that starts
tomorrow, Monday 22nd July: for her it would mean the week that starts
on the 29th.
In case it's relevant, I mention that my ex-wife is from California,
one of the few native adult Californians that I ever came across when I
lived in California.

I don't think this is exclusive to english. My consensus is that 'next' has
to refer to something else than 'this', but I note it hasn't been adopted
by everyone.

[Aidan Kehoe]

I'm wondering how common ambiguity in the word "next" is. My first wife, when I
was driving and she was giving directions, would say, for example, "take the
next right", which we would understand differently; for me the next right would
mean right at the intersection we are just coming to. For her it meant the one
after it. There was a similar ambiguity for weeks. If I say "next week" I mean
the week that starts tomorrow, Monday 22nd July: for her it would mean the week
that starts on the 29th.
In case it's relevant, I mention that my ex-wife is from California, one of the
few native adult Californians that I ever came across when I lived in
California.

I think she was just wrong. “This right” vs “next right” is a useful
distinction to have, and she didn’t have it. This ignores the
what-is-the-first-day-of-the-week other ambiguity of your second example.

An awkward thing to look into for evidence, even in these days of large
corpora.