I know there's a fixed phrase the day after tomorrow. But is it possible to omit the second tomorrow in the following sentence?
We won't be meeting tomorrow and the day after [tomorrow].
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1Yes, it's absolutely fine to omit "tomorrow" in normal parlance.– MohitCommented Aug 7, 2013 at 11:07
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3You could also say "We won't be meeting tomorrow or the next day."– HellionCommented Aug 7, 2013 at 17:27
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3The fixed phrase is not "the day after tomorrow" – it's simply "the day after". It can be the day after [any day reference]. Hence: "We won't be open on Christmas or the day after" (means we will be closed Dec 25 and Dec 26); or, "Aunt Lois will leave on Monday or the day after" (means she's planning to leave on Monday or Tuesday).– J.R. ♦Commented Aug 7, 2013 at 17:57
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3 Answers
You can omit the second tomorrow, but you've got the wrong conjunction in your sentence. It should read:
We won't be meeting tomorrow or the day after.
By using tomorrow previously in the sentence, you've already implied it as the word after after. So that should be just fine.
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Pardon my ignorance, but why is the conjunction or correct but not and? Also, wouldn't or give rise to ambiguity here? The other interpretation seems to show that only one of the two choices (tomorrow or the day after) can be true, and that the speaker isn't sure which of them exactly.– SherlockCommented Aug 7, 2013 at 17:14
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5This is one of those rare cases where English and Logic actually match up! Not(A) and Not(B) == Not(A or B). If you don't repeat the not, you have to change the conjunction to keep the logic valid.– HellionCommented Aug 7, 2013 at 17:25
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@Sherlock What Hellion said :) You can say "We will not be meeting tomorrow and we will not be meeting the day after tomorrow" or you can say "We will not be meeting tomorrow or the day after." Commented Aug 7, 2013 at 20:29
This is perfectly acceptable as the day after refers is said relative to tomorrow. If you're feeling a bit old-fashioned, you can use overmorrow to say the same thing:
We won't be meeting tomorrow and overmorrow.
Note that, while correct, overmorrow is not at all commonly used anyone, and even native speakers might not know what you mean.
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3You're right, overmorrow isn't used. In fact, it's not even included in many dictionaries. I would strongly recommend not using it, unless you wanted to deliberately sound oddly out-of-date.– J.R. ♦Commented Aug 7, 2013 at 18:03
Overmorrow, it means the day after tomorrow
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Welcome to ELL SE! Unfortunately, this doesn't answer the question at hand; it merely offers an alternative, which I never heard of. Do you have a dictionary reference to support you?– Glorfindel ♦Commented Sep 16, 2016 at 18:37
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2I think that one's been pushing up the daisies for a long time. english.stackexchange.com/questions/45412/… Commented Sep 16, 2016 at 19:07
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1Yes, it's been pushing up daisies, but no definite ones, for a century. The answer might still be interesting if @IrwellPete were motivated to expand it by adding references, as suggested, and perhaps by pointing out that English seems to be the only Germanic language which lacks an "accepted" word for the day after tomorrow. The history, including the puzzling and seemingly intentional exile of the word, is fascinating. Commented Sep 16, 2016 at 20:20
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@P.E.DantReinstateMonica As this old answer has been recently flagged, I am ready to delete it. But I do wonder if you would like to elaborate on what you hinted at in the comment and expand it into an answer? I'd be very glad to add a bounty to your answer to highlight it. Commented Jan 20, 2021 at 8:41