through Friday

P

pickup

Senior Member
" España, español"
Hi

I have trouble understanding the following sentence which I found in a dictionary so it is not possible to give any context, except for the short sentence that follows, but It doesn´t seem it can provide any meaningful context that could help clarify its the meaning.

"You can reach me here through Friday. I leave for Denver Saturday".

The preposition "through" means "on" in this case, doesn´t it?

So it doesn´t mean "from Monday through Friday".

Could anybody confirm what my thoughts are on this issue?

Thank you very much.
 
    • It means any time from now, whenever that is, until the end of Friday. If this is said in a business situation, that context tells us that it means "until the close of business on Friday" rather than "until 11:59 pm on Friday."

    So, if this is said on Monday, it means the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

    It is unlikely to be said on Thursday, since in that case the speaker would say "through tomorrow."

    It also cannot be said more than a week in advance, since in that case "Friday" is ambiguous. One could, however, say "through next Friday," "through the 26th of this month," "through March 15th" or anything like that. In any case, it always means "starting now, and continuing until the end of that day."
     
    Rover_KE said:
    Yes, please read the thread given in post #3, pickup.

    It's important to know that British English speakers do not use through in that way.

    We say 'You can reach me here till/until Friday' (up to and including Friday).

    Rover
    Click to expand...

    Thank you very much for your clear answers.
     
    Rover_KE said:
    ... British English speakers do not use through in that way.

    We say 'You can reach me here till/until Friday' (up to and including Friday).

    Rover
    Click to expand...
    You can say "till/until Friday" in AE as well, but it's ambiguous (to us). "Until Friday" can be taken to mean either including Friday or up to, but not including, Friday. "Through" as we use it has no such ambiguity: if we want to say "up to, but not including, Friday" we would say "through Thursday."
     
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