When somebody makes an arrangement to meet, I often need to ask them for the day of the month to clarify which day they mean. If it is Friday and somebody says to meet "this Wednesday", that to me is nonsense because "this Wednesday" has gone two days ago. If they say "next Wednesday", that is clearer but still I would want confirmation of the actual day of the month, say "Wednesday the seventeenth".

If it is Monday and somebody says "this Wednesday", I would assume they mean in two days' time, but if they say "next Wednesday", I would assume they mean in nine days' time.

I still find both terms inexact and irritating.

I couldn't say either. I would say "that is me". I don't know if that is correct English or not, but I will bend the language to avoid pompous sounding expressions like "John and I" and will use the incorrect "me and John". Maybe it just sounds so against my working class upbringing. If I can find a third alternative, or any way of avoiding these pompous expressions, I will use that, otherwise I will use the incorrect expression, knowing that some idiot will say it is wrong.....

I came to this forum by googling "showcase used as a verb". On another site that google took me to there was a quote from George Orwell about the diminuation of language inherent in the use of nouns as verbs.

I found myself using the verb "showcase", and I felt very pleased with myself, but afterwards queasy and disgusted with myself for using it, and wondered if I had been reading the Daily Mail too much and unconsciously thinking it is clever to use their clichés. I hadn't thought about it before.

I do find that reading that sort of material diminishes the quality of my own writing. I have never been a person who is naturally "in the loop", and have been made to feel inferior because I don't understand jargon and don't use it. Jargon sounds clever, but it is a cheap way of trying to describe your thoughts and impressions.

A friend made a comment that I thought couldn't have been more inaccurate when she said I was jealous of a woman writing for the Daily Mail, because she was a "writer", and I thought I would rather never write than spew those clichés, or be like those middle class women who write for that rag. I would rather never write or write like a moron than write like them, and I have been accused of sounding as though English as not my first language, by a cosy little online group that after a while I found less friendly and more an oppressive cliché. The kind of writing I do wish I had written, and could possibly be accused of being jealous of, is things like the lyrics of "The Drowning Man", written by Robert Smith of The Cure, and often things followers of that kind of music write. I find intense emotions and not trying to be pally with any crowd generates the kind of word power I seek from my unconscious.