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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 December 1

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December 1

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Word/expression meaning tomorrow+morning

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Is there or was there any expression in English that would mean both tomorrow and morning? Like the Spanish mañana or the German morgen? --Hofhof (talk) 15:03, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If, at some time after noon, you say "I will see you in the morning" that would be understood as the morning of the following day. Much earlier, and you would need to say "I will see you tomorrow morning" to make yourself clear.Wymspen (talk) 15:30, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Let me make myself clear: I don't want to make myself clear. Quite in contrary. I want to keep the play-on-words. --Hofhof (talk) 15:38, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Morrow is the English equivalent to morgen, and while it has both meanings, they're both archaic. I've personally only ever heard it used to mean "tomorrow". MChesterMC (talk) 16:08, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is "No, not in modern English" There is no single word or expression which means both "In the morning" and "On the next day". There used to be, in older varieties of English. That word was "Tomorrow", but since modern English has lost the first meaning, it currently lacks any single expression which could be ambiguous. --Jayron32 16:33, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The origin of "mañana" is interesting.[1] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:42, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The origin of "tomorrow" is also interesting.[2] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:38, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
While mañana generally means either "morning" or "tomorrow", mañana por la mañana means "tomorrow morning".[3] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:44, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The fixed phrase "on the morrow" is kind of part of modern English (though mainly in passive recognition of literary style), but most other usages would be rather archaic... AnonMoos (talk) 01:47, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • What this thread reminds me of is "The Next Day", one of the Black Widowers mystery short stories by Isaac Asimov. Unlike most mysteries, many of the ones in this series are about non-violent and even non-criminal events. In this story an editor working for a major publishing company talks about an argument he had with an author. He (the editor) thought they had an agreement to publish the story, but the author did not think so (or something like that) and was threatening to go to another publisher. Finally the author ended the argument by saying that he would send the manuscript the next day, but then it did not arrive, and the editor is puzzled. And the solution is that he hadn't ever said that he'd deliver it the next day, i.e. "tomorrow"; he'd been saying that he was carrying out his threat and sending it "to Morrow." --69.159.60.147 (talk) 01:52, 2 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The Portuguese do this very nicely:
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