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Please enlighten me about the difference in using "last" and "on" when writing dates. For example, which one would be correct: "I attended the meeting on December 14, 2014." Or, "I attended the meeting last December 14, 2014." I can't find any resource for answers. Thank you in advance.

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There would be nothing wrong with using last in this example, but it would be more usual (in the UK anyway) to use on.

The latter case would always imply the most recent 'last' instance of that date unless you specified that it was a previous 14 December, e.g. of 2013.

Last is more often used with days - I went there last Tuesday, but you can also say I went there on Tuesday. There is really no rule here but it just becomes a matter of usage. Perhaps 'last' emphasises that it was the most recent past Tueday, and not a previous Tuesday.

The same sort of principles apply to using 'last' with month. E.g I went there last December versus I went there in December.

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  • small typo "Tueday", penultimate one in third para. Jan 29, 2015 at 13:14
  • My hunch is that there's really no hard-fast rules on these. I've been trying to look for resources to validate these rules on usage: last December 14 and on December 14, 2014, but nothing comes up. Your answer is very helpful. Thank you!
    – chebs
    Jan 30, 2015 at 15:38

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