4

Is this idiomatic/correct to say:

  • The upcoming Friday's lesson (will be a success). ?

I'm asking since "The next Friday's lesson" would not be correct and I find both structures quite similar.

Thank you!

Improve this question
7
  • 1
    This is a good question. My first reaction was "no, that sounds wrong" but the more I think about it, the more I think it depends on how you parse it. Lesson is countable so it needs a determiner (and only one!) The is a determiner, and so is Friday's, so it looks wrong. But if you look at the upcoming Friday as a noun phrase, suddenly it looks correct, because it's "NP's lesson..." Commented yesterday
  • 1
    Why is it important to use the word "upcoming"? Which thing do you want to say is "upcoming"; is it Friday or the lesson? Commented yesterday
  • 3
    It would be more idiomatic to say "This Friday's lesson" or remove the article from the second: "Next Friday's lesson". Commented yesterday
  • Note that, at least in my dialect of American English, "This coming Friday's [....]" is a perfectly idiomatic (if a bit formal-sounding) way of saying this. The word 'coming' functions to emphasize that you're referring to a Friday that has yet to happen (this is the usual meaning of "this Friday" anyway), rather than one that just did happen. It is always "this coming Friday", however, not *"the coming Friday". Commented yesterday
  • @stangdon I wasn't sure if it's correct or not for the same reason. That said, could I use the "non-possessive" form "The upcoming Friday lesson" as well? I notice, in most situations, it would be more natural to change "the" to "this" which would make the possessive form being the only one correct. My teacher told me "The upcoming Friday lesson" is as good as the possessive form "The upcoming Friday's lesson", but she couldn't explain the difference properly. I would use them with no change in meaning, thinking they are both correct. Please, what's your view on that? Commented 15 hours ago

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
7

It's a bit awkward, though it might be recorded from idiomatic speech.

Better might be, "This Friday's lesson will be a success." The future tense makes it clear it's upcoming, and "this" emphasizes that it's in the current week.

Even, "Friday's lesson will be a success," would be sufficient, though.

Improve this answer
3
  • Is "The upcoming Friday's lesson." as awkward as "The upcoming Friday lesson."? Maybe in a better context, both of these would be ok/idiomatic? The point I was making here was that I was told both structures "The upcoming Friday lesson./The upcoming Friday's lesson." are possible. Commented yesterday
  • In comparison, in "The next Friday lesson./Next Friday's lesson." - using "the" in the second example would not be correct - "The next Friday's lesson." - incorrect.. So, that's why I'm making sure and asking here whether the structure "The upcoming Friday's lesson" is really ok/correct. Commented yesterday
  • The article "the" may used to make something specific. For example, "He's the last in line," where I believe American's are more likely to use "the" than British. However, with "upcoming", an article (or adjective) seem to be almost required. "May's upcoming storm..." or "An upcoming storm in May..." Commented yesterday
3

"Next Friday's lesson" (without "the") would be perfectly OK if you mean to tell someone you have a lesson scheduled for next Friday, and "the upcoming Friday" could be a possible replacement for "next Friday."

But the phrase "the upcoming Friday's lesson" sounds awkward. I think this is partly because it introduces some ambiguity: do you mean to talk about the lesson that is to occur on the upcoming Friday, or do you mean to talk about the upcoming lesson, which is also Friday's lesson?

The examples of usage of "upcoming" that I have found seem to be ones where "next" does not fit, such as "a list of upcoming events" or "the upcoming spring fashions," or they express the sense that an event is occurring sooner rather than later, such as "the band's upcoming concert tour" or "the upcoming election."

If I'm not mistaken about the context of the phrase, you could say, "Friday's lesson will be a success." We then know that you don't mean any past lesson that occurred on a Friday (because you said "will be") and we can infer that you don't mean any lesson scheduled to occur more than a week from today. That leaves only one Friday on which the lesson you are talking about might occur.

By the way, I think one could write something like this: "He used to take piano lessons on Friday. Once, after a particularly bad experience in a lesson, he said he hoped the next Friday's lesson would go better." So whether a particular phrase is OK or not depends very much on the context in which you want to use it, including what comes before as well as what comes after.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    It has never been clear to me at what point in the course of the week that "next Friday" becomes "this Friday". Ditto any other day of the week. Commented yesterday
  • 1
    @RonaldSole Good point. "Next Friday" works best if it's said on a Friday with respect to the Friday one week later. There's also "this coming Friday" or simply "Friday" (see this answer) to refer to the Friday that next occurs when today is not a Friday. If I have guessed the context of the phrase in the question, "Friday's lesson" would be fine. Commented yesterday
  • @RonaldSole That is indeed a common source of confusion, in my experience. If it’s currently Monday or Tuesday and you say “next Friday”, my experience is that most English speakers will think you mean ‘Friday of this week’ (the Friday that is next in time from right now, i.e. this Friday = next Friday), but many will think you mean ‘Friday of next week’ (based on the logic that ‘this’ and ‘next’ refer to different things, so this Friday can’t be the same as next Friday, which must instead be the Friday that comes after ‘this Friday’). Commented 8 hours ago
1

Note that "the next Friday's lesson" is reasonable where that lesson is referencing one before it:

One Friday we will learn about brain surgery and the next Friday's lesson will feature a test.

If you are merely referencing the next Friday from now, then just use "next":

Next Friday's lesson will feature a test.

This does fall into the ambiguity of when "this Friday" and "next Friday" actually are, which can be avoided by using "Friday this week" and "Friday next week". Since weeks run between weekends and we're talking about a day which is not on a weekend, "this week" is unambiguously the week containing today, and "next week" is the week following the upcoming weekend.

Friday's lesson next week will feature a test.
(So if that is announced on Tuesday 31 March, it applies to Friday 10 April)

My take on upcoming is that it works at one remove; you're talking more generally about "an upcoming visit", meaning a visit that is due to happen at some point; or as I did above, "the upcoming weekend" meaning the weekend that is due to happen at the general point in time we're talking about. Thus you can't actually be specific — "the upcoming Friday's lesson" is too specific to use upcoming: not only does it identify a day, but it identifies the lesson. You could say "The upcoming weekend of sports will be a major event," because weekend is less specific than "Saturday's match". "The upcoming match will be a test of stamina" is also fine, because it's talking about whichever match is next, not specifically about Saturday's match.

Thus "the upcoming lesson" (meaning the next lesson) is fine; but once you get past that specific next lesson, you have to be more vague, such as "the lesson on an upcoming Friday."

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.