Talk:today

@-sche: I think you should have a look at the noun section. Neither the usex nor the quote really support that POS, imo. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 10:35, 29 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Hmm, it seems noun-y enough to me. You can replace it with other nouns or noun phrases (the youth of today → the youth of this generation, the youth of this era, and [grammatically comparable] the man of the hour; today is the day we'll fix it → [grammatically comparable] adventure is the thing I seek), whereas you can't replace it with adverbs: *"the youth of currently".

Of the lemmings, Century, Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Oxforddictionaries.com and Dictionary.com all have this as a noun with either two senses ("the current day" and "the current era") or one combo sense, with usexes like "today is Monday", "the events of today".

The quotation may be misplaced, though.

@DCDuring, do you (or CGEL) have anything to add here?

- -sche (discuss) 18:14, 30 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

CGEL addresses the point very explicitly, criticizing the placement of words like today in the adverb category. IOW, they would have us eliminate the Adverb PoS section at [[today]]. Unlike our practice, CGEL makes a strong distinction between word class ("category") and grammatical function. That nouns (or members of other word classes) of various semantic types have diverse grammatical functions they seem to view as a grammatical matter, not a lexical one. Following are two longish quotes from CGEL (which work I cannot recommend enough for such matters) that deal specifically with today:

"Reducing the extension of the adverb category

"In the practice of traditional grammar (as reflected, for example, in the classification of words in dictionaries), the adverb is a miscellaneous or residual category ....

"In the present grammar we have endeavoured to make the adverb a more coherent category. To this end we have significantly reduced its membership in the following ways:

[....]

"Minor changes: pronouns and determinatives

"We also exclude the following from the adverb category:

[5] i yesterday, today, tomorrow, tonight [pronouns]

ii the, this, that, all, any, a little, much, little, enough [determinatives]

Traditional grammar take the items in [5i] to be nouns in examples like [6i] and adverbs in [6ii-6iii]:

[6] i Yesterday was the the first day for weeks that it hasn't rained.

ii They arrived yesterday.

iii [Their behaviour yesterday] was quite embarrassing.

There is, however, no need to distinguish the yesterday of [i] and [ii] in terms of category as well as function. There are a considerable number of NPs that can function as adjunct in clause structure...." (page 564)

"NPs

"The following nouns are illustrative of those that head temporal location NPs:

i yesterday today tomorrow tonight Sunday Monday

ii morning ....." (page 698)

HTH. DCDuring (talk) 19:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

Note that they characterize today as both a noun and a pronoun. The pronoun classification may be because, unlike almost all common nouns, today (and its close relatives) is only exceptionally preceded by a determinative. DCDuring (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2018 (UTC)Reply

What meaning of today is used in a phrase such as a fortnight today? --Backinstadiums (talk) 21:27, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

adjective (Informal) the present era; up-to-date: the today look in clothing styles. --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:47, 1 February 2021 (UTC)Reply