Can I say "He came last morning."?

Question

Hello, everyone:I need to ask a question: Can I say "He came last morning.", and "He came last afternoon."?I am an English teacher, so I need to confirm such usage is exist or not before I  teach my student. Thank you for your help!

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

I need to ask a question: Can I say "He came last morning.", and "He came last afternoon."?

Say 'He came yesterday morning', 'He came yesterday afternoon'.

Best wishes, Clive

Viceidol · Answer

Thank you so much!

CalifJim · Answer

yesterday morning, this morning, tomorrow morning
yesterday afternoon, this afternoon, tomorrow afternoon
yesterday evening, this evening, tomorrow evening
last night, tonight, tomorrow night

CJ

Hoa Thai · Answer

CalifJimyesterday morning, this morning, tomorrow morning
yesterday afternoon, this afternoon, tomorrow afternoon
yesterday evening, this evening, tomorrow evening
last night, tonight, tomorrow night

CJ

Dear CalifJim and Clive,

Does the distinction come from 'last', which could mean 'recently' or 'the only one left"?

recentlly: Do you remember the last evening / night we were with John?
the only one left: Let's make this our last evening / night to remember?

Thanks and Best Regards,
Hoa Thai

CalifJim · Answer

last night means the night between yesterday and today, therefore, the most recent night.

CJ

Hoa Thai · Answer

CalifJimlast night means the night between yesterday and today, therefore, the most recent night.

CJ

Hi CaliJim,

Do you mean the sentences that I posted earlier were wrong in the usage of 'last evening / night' ? Thus, to be correct, should I rewrite:

1. Do you remember the most recent (the latest) evening / night we were with John?
2. Let's make this our final evening / night to remember.

I don't like these two sentences at all! Could you please show me how to express my thoughts better? I would like to express that:

1. The most recent evening / night (not the evening / night of the day before, but sometime in the past).
2. The 'one remaining evening / night' to remember before parting (in the future potentially there might be another one).

Thanks,
Hoa Thai

Yankee · Answer

Hi Hoa Thai

To me, your examples are not comparable, and I'm also not sure what you're getting at.

In your first sentence, the use of the article 'the' makes a huge difference in the meaning.

recently: Do you remember the last evening / night we were with John?

You could just as easily say "Do you remember the last morning/afternoon we were with John?"
Saying 'the last

' doesn't mean recently; it refers to thefinal time out of all of the past times. 'The last morning/afternoon/evening/night' could have been a decade ago.

the only one left: Let's make this our last evening / night to remember?

This sentence is quite awkward. However, even in this sentence, the sense of 'our last' would be '(our) final'. Once again, it would also be possible to talk about 'our final morning or afternoon'.

Hoa Thai · Answer

Hi Yankee,

YankeeHi Hoa Thai

To me, your examples are not comparable, and I'm also not sure what you're getting at.

In your first sentence, the use of the article 'the' makes a huge difference in the meaning.
recently: Do you remember the last evening / night we were with John?
You could just as easily say "Do you remember the last morning/afternoon we were with John?"
Saying 'the last ' doesn't mean recently; it refers to thefinal time out of all of the past times. 'The last morning/afternoon/evening/night' could have been a decade ago.

the only one left: Let's make this our last evening / night to remember?
This sentence is quite awkward. However, even in this sentence, the sense of 'our last' would be '(our) final'. Once again, it would also be possible to talk about 'our final morning or afternoon'.

1st sentence: 'recently' was my wrong choice of word. I posted the question to find out whether the presence of the article 'the' would allow us to use 'last' with morning / afternoon / evening / night or not. You answered that!

2nd sentence: Again you answered the question I had in mind! However, I don't quite understand the awkwardness that you mentioned. Is it because of the question mark at the end? If so, it was a typo (you should find that mistake removed in my second post). If not, could you kindly explain?

In short, I should have asked whether we could use 'last' with 'morning / afternoon / evening' besides 'night'? And in what situations?

Thanks,
Hoa Thai

Yankee · Answer

Hi Hoa Thai

I guess there are several things that make your second sentence awkward. One reason is that there is a fairly fixed expression that goes "a night to remember". It would be pretty typical to say something such as "Let's make it/this a night to remember." If I wanted to add "our last night" to that sentence, then I would probably add it this way:
"Let's make our last night a night to remember."
In other words, "let's make our final night an especially memorable one."

Your wording seems to suggest that "our night" is not the final night of our nights together, but rather only the final one of a number of memorable and forgettable nights -- i.e. there have previously been nights to forget and also nights to remember. After this particular night, there won't be any more nights to remember. Instead, any of our future nights together will only be nights to forget.

I've used only the word 'night' above in order to try to simplify things.
If my explanation seems awkward, it's probably because I find the sentence so awkward.

Hoa Thai · Answer

Oh! It is very clear to me now ('making this (night) our last night ' is definitely awkward!- unless the speaker's intention is not to ever see his/her friend again).
Thanh you for the explanation!
Hoa Thai

Can I say "He came last morning."?

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