one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'

Subject: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 07:50 AM

At a quiz last night we were asked for one word meaning the day after tomorrow and told it wasn't 'Tuesday'

I've forgotten what the answer was supposed to be - has anyone ever heard the word in use or is it something archaic that some quiz book author has got hold of to pad out his questions?

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: WindhoverWeaver
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 07:57 AM

"Overmorrow" might be the word you are looking for, but it is totally obsolete and is not even listed in the OED. Was never common.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,michael gill
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 07:59 AM

In Scotland it's referred to the next-again day

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 08:04 AM

It would be along the same lines as the Dutch 'overmorgen' or German 'uebermorgen', which are both commonly used.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Snuffy
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 08:43 AM

"après-demain" does it for the French, apparently.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 09:01 AM

Thanks Windhover. That's what she said. Any idea when it was in use?

The French and Scots terms don't fit the 'one word' requirement.
Interesting about the Dutch & German.

'Day after tomorrow' seems an adequate term, to me.

What a shame the authors of quiz books don't put learned footnotes in the answers.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 09:18 AM

I like overmorrow.

Now we can have jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, jam overmorrow - but never jam today.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: alex s
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 09:23 AM

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913 + 1828)
O"ver*mor"row (?), n. The day after or following to-morrow. [Obs.] Bible (1551).


But what is the point of having obsolete words in a quiz??

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: WindhoverWeaver
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 09:32 AM

Mo, Wiktionary gives a total of 4 citations:

As an adverb

1) 1535, Myles Coverdale, The Byble, that is, the Holy Scrypture of the Olde and New Teſtament, faythfully tranſlated into Englyſhe[1], Tobit 8:4, page D.iiij:
Thē ſpake Tobias unto the virgin, and ſayde: Up Sara, let us make oure prayer unto God to daye, tomorow, and ouermorow: for theſe thre nightes wil we reconcyle oure ſelues with God: and whan the thirde holy night is paſt, we ſhall ioyne together in ye deutye of mariage.
Then spake Tobias unto the virgin, and said: Up Sara, let us make our prayer unto God today, tomorrow, and overmorrow: for these three nights will we reconcile ourselves with God, and when the third holy night is past, we shall join together in the duty of marriage.

2) 1925, Parliamentary Debates: Official Report[2], volume 188, H.M. Stationery Off., page iv:
We can go not overmorrow, but on Thursday.

3) 1969, James Klugman quoting Bucharin, History of the Communist Party of Great Britain: The General Strike, 1925-1927[3], volume 2, London: Lawrence & Wishart, page 73:
Sinowjeff and myself go to Caucasus overmorrow.

As a noun

4) 1898, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The first part of the tragedy of Faust, Longmans, Green and Co., page 197:
My prescient limbs already borrow
From rare Walpurgis-night a glow :
It comes round on the overmorrow [transl. übermorgen] —
Then why we are awake we know.

Clearly, a word that can go 350 years between citations is not what one would call common! Seems to have been resurrected (briefly) in the 1920s.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 09:44 AM

methavrio in Greek if that's of any interest to anyone other than George P

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 10:05 AM

From: WindhoverWeaver
"1) 1535, Myles Coverdale, The Byble, that is, the Holy Scrypture of the Olde and New Teſtament, faythfully tranſlated into Englyſhe[1], Tobit 8:4, page D.iiij:
Thē ſpake Tobias unto the virgin, and ſayde: Up Sara, let us make oure prayer unto God to daye, tomorow, and ouermorow: for theſe thre nightes wil we reconcyle oure ſelues with God: and whan the thirde holy night is paſt, we ſhall ioyne together in ye deutye of mariage.
Then spake Tobias unto the virgin, and said: Up Sara, let us make our prayer unto God today, tomorrow, and overmorrow: for these three nights will we reconcile ourselves with God, and when the third holy night is past, we shall join together in the duty of marriage"

Sounds very apocryphal to me.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: bfdk
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 10:08 AM

Overmorgen applies in Denmark, too, spelling and all.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 10:23 AM

Today that would be Wednesday.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 10:33 AM

I'm not sure that Coverdale is that obsolete, seeing that it's the translation used by the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer.

In Welsh, the day after tomorrow is "drennydd", so an English word would be useful to know in Chester.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 11:56 AM

Preksutra in Serbian (and Croatian). In common use.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Haruo
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 11:59 AM

In Esperanto we say postmorgaŭ.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 12:10 PM

Hebrew has a word that translates literally "as a pair of tomorrows"; using a specialised plural, '-i-yim', used only for pairs, or for things that generally come in pairs. Thus 'garb-iyim' = socks: so the Hebrew for tomorrow, מָחָר, transliterates as 'mahar'*; & the day after tomorrow is 'mahar-iyim'.

~M~

*the 'h' pronounced gutturally, so 'machar' on analogy of loch

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 12:24 PM

Not that any of us will probably have cause to use it, but the word for it is 'siniguene' in Malinke! (Pronounced 'seeneegennay')

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Silas
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 12:38 PM

wEDNESDAY?

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: open mike
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 12:54 PM

regarding "in Esperanto we say postmorgaŭ. " I thought Esperanto was only a written language....interesting to know it is also spoken. Can you give us some background into that language? I understand it was invented to try to have a universal language that could be used by all.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Stanron
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 05:05 PM

Why not invent your own? 'Post morrow' could be contracted to stu'morra. Or whatever.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Bugsy
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 07:46 PM

I think it may be "Toodayztyme"

CHeers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Joe_F
Date: 17 Dec 12 - 08:33 PM

Russian also has one word: poslezavtra ("aftertomorrow"). And pozavchera ("alongbehindyesterday") for the day before yesterday.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 05:35 AM

So now we know that many languages have one word where common English usage has a phrase.

This thread could run till the day after tomorrow.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: r.padgett
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 05:46 AM

aftermorrowday, maybe

Ray

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 01:04 PM

I often say mañana

Which, depanding on the way it is said, may mean tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next week or never.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 01:09 PM

For all that it has the biggest vocabulary in the world, English does gaps. George Orwell considered it particularly lacking in the territory around nostalgia. But for me the greatest failing is the absence of an animate singular pronoun embracing male and female; a gap into which "they/them" is grotesquely pushed with ever-increasing frequency.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: WindhoverWeaver
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 01:31 PM

Surely, Peter, that is a problem for many, if not most, languages?

It used to be that you could use the neuter form for mixed groups, even into the 1960s: Thus, for instance, C. S. Lewis could write of a child "playing with its toys" and no-one considered it odd. Then someone (the dreaded "they"?) decided it was de-humanizing to use the neuter, and it got changed to mean inanimate. Too bad, because just after that "they" also decided we couldn't use an inclusive masculine anymore and so the need for the good old neuter returned, but it doesn't really exist anymore.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 01:38 PM

Hindi-Urdu has "parson~" -- which means BOTH the day after tomorrow and the day before yesterday. Wrap your brain around that!

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: treewind
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 01:55 PM

"I often say mañana"

Ah yes. And in Cornish, that's "dreckly", with the same range of meanings.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 18 Dec 12 - 02:19 PM

I like "aftermorrow." But I also like Tom Waits' great song about an imperial soldier's personal and moral dilemma, "The Day After Tomorrow," which couldn't have been written if "aftermorrow" was the common expression.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mysha
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 08:21 AM

Hi,

So, is there a word for day before yesterday as well?

And as to other languages: Frisian has relative dates for a whole week.
betearjuster, earjuster, juster, hjoed, moarn, oaremoarn, oeroaremoarn.
Then combine with numbers of weeks past or future to get relative dates further away.

Bye
                                                                Mysha

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,Jon Heslop
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 09:31 AM

"and in Cornish, that's 'dreckly' with the same range of meanings".
'Dreckly' dosn't convey that same sense of urgency as manana.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: WindhoverWeaver
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 12:06 PM

Of course there is, Mysha: ereyesterday, which is also an obsolete word. To my mind it is far less of an impressive word than overmorrow.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 01:21 PM

Again, the Dutch 'eergisteren' shares the same root. German 'vorgestern' probably less so.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 02:29 PM

Jon Heslop, the Professor of Irish at Trinity College Dublin, David Greene, used to tell the same joke; he was once asked if there was any word in the Irish language expressing the same concept as mañana, to which he had replied, after some thought, that there was but it lacked the degree of urgency of the Spanish term.

What I really need, however, is a way of distinguishing what English speakers mean when they say "next Friday" or "last Monday"; it is perfectly clear what "next week" or "last month" mean, but "next Friday" seems to be capable of meaning either the Friday occurring later this same week, or the Friday following. There may be a simple rule, but if so, very few people follow it with any consistency .

On the other hand this could explain why my dating attempts were invariably unsuccessful.

Matthew

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 02:35 PM

In Ireland, in Hiberno-english if you like, it's common to distinguish those by using 'next (or last) Friday' and 'next (or last) Friday week'

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 02:43 PM

This reminds me of the Scots I lived among, who always confused me with their Auld Year's Nicht and New Year's Eve. What is the difference? Perhaps they were so drunk at Hogmanay they confused themselves as well!

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 05:14 PM

Going back to Windhover's point, it's only really in English that there's such confusion between sex and gender, after all when English had grammatical gender, "woman" (wife-man) was masculine. That's what led to Sammuel Clements pronouncing that Germans had no sense of humour because they didn't find one of his pieces funny, as it was based on the premise that German grammatical gender if transliterated into English is absurd.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 06:09 PM

'On Friday' or 'Friday week' makes the distinction pretty clearly. For some reason 'next Friday' seems more open to misunderstanding, though I would always tend to assume it meant the Friday of the present week (unless it were said on a Saturday...)

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Allan Conn
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 06:12 PM

"Auld Year's Nicht and New Year's Eve. What is the difference?" Here in the south of Scotland the common term is "Auld Year's Night" though it is less common elsewhere in Scotland where the term Hogmanay is more commonly used. New Year's Eve isn't really a particularly Scottish term as such.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Allan Conn
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 06:18 PM

"it's common to distinguish those by using 'next (or last) Friday' and 'next (or last) Friday week'"

Last Friday, this Friday, and next Friday! Where I come from anyway. Same meaning as last week, this week and next week.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 06:28 PM

WindhoverWeaver: AFAIK it has never been possible in English to use "it" as a general common-gender pronoun. "Child" is special; it has been neuter for a long time, like "Kind" in German and "Ditya" in Russian.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Allan Conn
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 06:40 PM

The first defintion in my Oxford Dictionary for the word 'it' gives it as a pronoun for ............

the thing (or occasionally animal or child) which has been previously mentioned.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: WindhoverWeaver
Date: 19 Dec 12 - 07:04 PM

Joe, Allan, you are probably right. I spoke hastily.

I do think it a shame that we have lost the inclusive use of the masculine without gaining an acceptable replacement. It leads to all sorts of cumbersome circumlocutions. I find it especially intrusive in older hymns that never seem to scan as well.

Basically, I'm just turning into an old fart!

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 03:44 AM

I agree that we need words so that we can talk about children/people without needing to know if they are boys or girls.
There's a lot more important things to know about people than that.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 03:49 AM

I can see why the use of 'he' for either has been dropped though, as it has strong overtones of the attitude held by some that only boys 'to keep the name alive' really matter.
It doesn't matter if that was the original connotation, if that's the impression it gives now. (Like the n***** word, which may not have been offensive but would be if used now)

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 03:59 AM

In Irish (Gaelic), the "day before yesterday" is arú inné and "the day after tomorrow" is arú amáireach There are several such constructions. The lexicographer Dineen (1927) relates it to an obsolete use of the English "ere" - though I'm not sure I follow his argument.

Regards

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: GUEST, Sminky
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 06:30 AM

You're all wasting your time.

According to the predictions there won't be a 'day after tomorrow'.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 06:21 PM

Yes but counting from the start of the thread , we've already had it.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 07:21 PM

L'apres-demain in French do I vaguely remember from somewhere (the after-tomorrow).

Mo, I think Sminky is referring to the predicted ending of the world!

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mo the caller
Date: 21 Dec 12 - 05:49 AM

I'm old enough to have seen the world end SO Many times.

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Mysha
Date: 22 Dec 12 - 06:47 AM

Hi,

Are you trying to distinguish between this Friday and a week from Friday?

BTW, I'd say "New Year's Eve" is English and nowadays is at least both the last light period and the dark period leading up to Midnight (or dawn, if you're non-clock). Auld Year's Day in Scottish would be the part where the sun would (hypothetically) be visible, whilst Auld Year's Nicht would be the night following (or maybe only the evening, if you're on-clock).

Merry 'fore ere-Christmas Eve everyone,
                                                                Mysha

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Helen
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 07:36 AM

By comparion, "ante penultimate" is derived from Latin and means something before the next to the last in a series.

Ante = before, pen = next to (I think) & ultimate is last, so the one before the one before the last one.

How cumbersome is that!

:-D

Subject: RE: one word meaning 'day after tomorrow'
From: Helen
Date: 24 Dec 12 - 07:38 AM

Sorry, typo - that should read "by comparison"