February 14, 2009

"Last January" vs "January last year"

> He arrived in New York last January.其中的last January
> 书上解释为今年一月，而不是去年一月~困惑~
> 如果按这样翻译那last该怎么分辨是今年还是去年？

Last is a commonly confused word. Technically, it means "immediately past" (see dict.org, where an example is "last Thursday"), "most recent; next before the present" (see dictionary.com, where an example is "last Friday"). So if today is Friday, "last Thursday" as the "immediately past" or "most recent" Thursday would technically be yesterday. Similarly, if it's any month after January now, "last January" would be January this year.

But as Gary B. Larson in his Style Manual points out,

The word last can also be confusing to mean "most recent" when using the name of a month or day; does last April mean April this year or April last year? Preferred: It happened in April. It happened Wednesday. Or: It happened last week. It happened last month. Redundant: It happened last Wednesday

I think Mr. Larson has a good point (although I don't have the feeling of redundancy in the last sentence).Use "last" only when it's not ambiguous; e.g., if it's February now, "last May" means May last year. But say "last Month" or "in January" to refer to the January of this year, and "in January last year" to refer to that in the last year.

[Update 2024-09] We just did a very small test by asking 7 American English native speakers. Suppose today is Friday, six say "last Wednesday" means "Wednesday last week" and one says it means "the past Wednesday" (i.e. two days ago). (That one person lives in New York and is a young man. By the way, he's also the only person that says "next Wednesday" means "the coming Wednesday" if today is Monday.) In fact, the six people's response matches my personal impression, even though I always try to be specific in speaking and writing. In spite of the small sample size, it's safe to say there's a discrepancy between what most people mean by these phrases and what some dictionaries say most people mean. Nevertheless, it's always a good idea to avoid ambiguity.