Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello,

Thank you very much for your help all

Would you tell me
why 'the' can't come in front of last Thursday
in the following sentence?

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Thanksgiving day, last Thursday in November, is celebrated ~
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When last means "previous", last usually don't go with 'the.'
- last summer, last Sunday.

In the above sentence, however, last has the meaning of
"the final." Then why is it that 'the' is omitted?

Dear Hey--

You got some bad information. The sentence is incorrect as written; "the" should be inserted after the comma.

Just an observation:

Some people treat days of the week as personal pronouns. Just as you wouldn't say "The Tara B is correct" , I find many native speakers wouldn't say "the last Thursday" when meaning "the previous Thursday".

And although I'm probably wrong, Hey's theory regarding "last" with no determiner meaning "the previous" seems to follow common usage where I'm from. "The last Thursday" sounds more like "The final Thursday (of a given period of time)" (The final Thursday of the month is when our rent is due).

But I'm assuming that formal grammar dictates that "the" should be used.

I think wj is on to something. Certainly I don't see why last Thursday should be any more problematic than last year/month/week/century....

The last year would be OK in a context like 2005 was the last year I worked in Brighton so I suppose on the Wednesday of your last week at work in a cowboy school you hate you could say Tomorrow is the last Thursday I have to teach in this dungheap.

Thanks!