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5iang
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I'm sure that languages change at all times. But could it be possible that someone would say "yesterday night" instead of "last night" now? Is it acceptable?
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Shakespeare's brother
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Hi, both versions are perfectly acceptable in my opinion.
Anglika
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So far as I am aware, it always has been acceptable and it is certainly possible.
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It's interesting, though, that while 'last night' and 'yesterday night' are both acceptable, only 'yesterday evening' is (in my dialect, that is, which is pretty middle-of-the-road - my son once had a nursery rhyme tape with a song that started 'Last evening Cousin Peter came' - which struck me as very odd).
http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=yesterday+evening (90 hits)
but
http://sara.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/saraWeb?qy=last+evening (64 hits)
b
This issue has come up before, in my ESL experience, and I found that BrE speakers found 'yesterday night' acceptable, much to my surprise as it was something I had never come across. There's no reason, of course that it couldn't be or isn't but it is still strange in my neck of the woods.
'last evening' is copasetic.
'last evening' is copasetic.
Yes, I agree I have no problem with 'yesterday night' either.
'Last evening' is 'acceptable' to me but I probably wouldn't describe it as 'very acceptable' as it sounds somewhat old-fashioned to my ear.
I'd be interested in what North Americans feel about 'tomorrow night' which would seem to be similar to 'yesterday night' is that also odd?
'Last evening' is 'acceptable' to me but I probably wouldn't describe it as 'very acceptable' as it sounds somewhat old-fashioned to my ear.
I'd be interested in what North Americans feel about 'tomorrow night' which would seem to be similar to 'yesterday night' is that also odd?
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No, "tomorrow evening/night" is the common expression.
"Yesterday night" in the U.S.A. marks you as a foreigner. We always say "las' night." My ESL students always say "yesterday night." As for tomorrow night, if we say, "Monday night" the person would respond, "Tomorrow?" I don't know of any option for tomorrow nor why we always say last night. It is possible, but pretty far fetched, that because we have a tendency to shorten everything, we prefer the shorter "last" to the longer "yesterday"-? However, we DO say "yesterday afternoon" not "last afternoon." None of my etymology or ESL books address this. Now I'm hooked on finding an answer. I always tell my students that U.S. Americans usually take the path of least resistance.
"Yesterday night" in the U.S.A. marks you as a foreigner. We always say "las' night."
Hold on there - we have a misunderstanding I think. To me 'yesterday night' is not the same as 'last night'. It refers to the night before 'last night'
Hold on there - we have a misunderstanding I think. To me 'yesterday night' is not the same as 'last night'. It refers to the night before 'last night'
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At least one.
Are Brits considered "foreigners"?I'm shocked to hear that "yesterday night" means "the day before yesterday's night". Have I read that right? :-?
That's idiom for ya'.
Sounds archaic to me, B, but I'm not really sure. Not used in my NOTWs.
Anglika
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Lovely word, but archaic and now unused apart from the occasional historical novelist; "Yestere'en" is another one of this kind.
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On the subject of shortening, there's the very old (Elizabethan?) abbreviation of 'yesterday evening' - yestre'en. This can be safely ignored for purposes of ELT!
b
PS Anglika got there first
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