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Does it mean " this time at the end of the week"??

Claims for the week ended March 15 were revised to show 1,000 more applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast first-time applications for jobless benefits rising to 325,000 in the week ended March 22.

3 Answers 3

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If I understand "this time" in your question to mean the times March 15 and March 22 in your quote, the answer is yes. The grammar is incorrect, however; correct is "the week ending March 15/March 22".

You can also say "the week which ended on March 15" if you like, but that's rather wordy. (Wordiness has its place, but usually conciseness is preferable.)

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  • Google Ngrams shows a mixture of 'week ended [Month]' and 'week ending [Month]'. There is a distinct preference for 'ending', but it's really too strong to say that 'ended' is 'incorrect'.
    – Sydney
    Commented Jul 19, 2015 at 22:46
  • Context is important on this. "The week ended March 15" is a complete sentence, although "the week ended on March 15" is more correct. "The week ending March 15" is not a complete sentence, having a meaning equivalent to "the week which ends on March 15." You will find both in the ngram viewer, of course. However, the OP's sentence is grammatically incorrect because he uses "ended" in a subordinate clause.
    – BobRodes
    Commented Jul 30, 2015 at 1:51
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The author is discussing financial statistics, which very often are directly relevant to the passage of time. The use of "ended" as opposed to "ending" alerts the listener or reader that the date they are about to cogitate is in the past.

As it is not uncommon in the financial world to constantly consider the effects of amortization as well as budgeting (for two examples), I think this use of style is intended to alert the listener to the fact that the events occurred in a previous period.

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It means for the week that ends on March 15th (note that the phrase implies that March 15th falls on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday), so March 9-15.

That being said, in some contexts where you're only considering weekdays, the actual dates involved might be March 11-15 (if March 15 is a Friday).

So, the economists had forecast that there would be 325,000 applications between March 16th and March 22nd.

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    I'd be careful about your use of "between" here. Between does not usually include the end points; so "between March 16th and March 22nd" could mean the five days of the 17th to the 21st inclusive. Which is why the phrase " the week ended xxx" is concise and understood to mean the 7 days up to and including xxx.
    – toandfro
    Commented Mar 28, 2014 at 3:47
  • @toandfro Hmm, I see your point, but because days are long periods of time, it could be understood as between the beginning of March 16th and the end of March 22nd. More importantly though, saying "between March 15th and March 23rd" would be confusing. There's something to be said for logic etc, but I'm fairly sure in this case the meaning of between is clear.
    – Alicja Z
    Commented Mar 28, 2014 at 10:48
  • It means March 9 - 15 regardless of the year.
    – Chad
    Commented Jul 15, 2015 at 17:40
  • @Chad Good point. Edited.
    – Alicja Z
    Commented Jul 19, 2015 at 21:15

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