I know I spend way too much time on AskMeFi, but this is such an interesting debate: “If I say to you, “The 5 o’clock meeting has been pushed forward 1 hour,” what do you understand the new meeting time to be?”My immediate response was 4:00. The Snook said 6:00. And then we argued about it all the way to work this morning. What do you think?
10 responses
Initially I was going to say 6:00, but conversely pushed back doesn’t mean 4:00 to me, so I guess I would have to say that pushed forward means an hour earlier…? In a real world situation, I would definitely miss it either way. 🙂
4pm, for sure. forward indicates earlier. if it was moved to 6, then it would have been pushed back.
I immediately thought “Then it’s been moved to 4.” Following Brigita’s lead, it was really about what I take “pushed back” to mean and going the opposite way. I think I would just say “moved up an hour,” but I guess that could be a little confusing, too.
I was really surprised to see everyone that said 4:00 – if someone had said it to me in real life I wouldn’t have given it a second thought and shown up at 6:00.
Interesting, i ask that in work (over 10 people answer, most finnish, few russian and french) and they all say: 6:00. Difference in culture?
I’d say earlier. It’s a strange way of putting it, but “pushed back” — the opposite — would clearly mean 6pm. So, pushed forward would be 4.
I think that we are thinking a different way:
6:00 – forward mean always going to the future and backward is always going to the history
4:00 – forward mean going close to the present moment and backward is going away from to the present moment
I hope i understand it right, comments? Difficult, more things to understand when communicate with people from other countries 🙂
I think I would ask for clarification if I heard this, plus, who has 6 pm meetings, anyway? (at least if it’s a work meeting…)
What’s confusing is the preposition: I would think pushed back would be for 6 pm and pulled forward to 4 pm. But no one says that; usually to just move the meeting earlier to 4 pm.
Now I’m liking the way Tricia thinks–perhaps the more realistic response would simply be “Eff that–I’m off the friggin’ clock at 3:30!”
Or maybe that’s just the teacher in me. 🙂
It’s funny – I totally picture my schedule in “3-D” with events coming towards me, so one of them being “pushed forward” is automatically assumed to be coming closer to me. The Snook thinks this is an obvious sign of being self-centred. He’s probably right. 🙂