Thursday's #

[ecstasy]

1	The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel	$842,828	-9%	1,573	--	$536	$12,360,265	1	Fox Searchlight
2	CHAPPiE	$809,170	-16%	3,201	--	$253	$17,612,761	1	Sony / Columbia
3	Focus (2015)	$807,022	-5%	3,323	0	$243	$38,227,415	2	Warner Bros.
4	Kingsman: The Secret Service	$731,547	-2%	3,101	-181	$236	$101,173,238	4	Fox
5	Fifty Shades of Grey	$501,840	-3%	2,788	-595	$180	$158,481,610	4	Universal / Focus
6	McFarland, USA	$453,338	-2%	2,792	27	$162	$31,282,107	3	Disney
7	The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water	$441,547	-3%	3,097	-370	$143	$150,591,372	5	Paramount
8	American Sniper	$354,030	-3%	2,545	-369	$139	$338,569,564	11	Warner Bros.
9	The Lazarus Effect	$347,768	-5%	2,666	0	$130	$18,924,318	2	Relativity Media
10	Unfinished Business	$346,437	-7%	2,777	--	$125	$6,377,755	1	Fox
11	The DUFF	$316,693	-1%	2,559	-63	$124	$27,417,407	3	CBS Films / Lionsgate
12	Paddington	$122,428	-4%	1,135	-286	$108	$72,590,178	8	Weinstein / Dimension

[terrestrial]

Generally, if we're just discussing what placement something had on the chart, use "was". The sentence construction "EMH2 is #1 on Thursday" may not be entirely incorrect, but it sounds weird since it's Friday and we're talking about a past event. You can correctly say "Cinderella is #1 on Friday" right now, but tomorrow we'd say "Cinderella was #1 on Friday."

 

This is less about indicating that there may have been a change in position and more that we're talking about a placement in the past, regardless of the current placement.

 

If you're trying to establish some continuity, you could use another verb. For instance, if you want to show the difference between the Wednesday and Thursday position you could say "Marigold rose to #1 on Thursday".

If there was some new information which changed the position, you'd still use "was" if you're just talking about the single day: Chappie was #1 on Wednesday. Chappie was #2 on Thursday.

 

 

You didn't really ask it, but there's also a point about spatial positioning. This is much more muddled, however, as the times you should use "at" or "on" or "in" may not be entirely clear. To me, at least, it sounds more correct to say "EMH2 was at #1 on Thursday" than "EMH2 was on #1 on Thursday".

 

Thank you very much, I think especiall the at / on did help. I only hope I can remember to use it, those little words are especially hard for me to sort out.

 

spatial I had to look up, never hear the term, a new word / term learned as an extra

 

 

You're thinking about it way too hard. Weekday numbers don't warrant that type of analysis unless we're talking the heart of summer.

 

It's not about Thursday's..., it's about generally learning English.

 

See my signature, I'm not finished with learning English, have still a lot to learn

[BadAtGender]

Thank you very much, I think especiall the at / on did help. I only hope I can remember to use it, those little words are especially hard for me to sort out.

 

spatial I had to look up, never hear the term, a new word / term learned as an extra

 

Ah, sorry. I was thinking about the spatial/temporal (space/time) distinction for how we describe placement of things.

 

It mostly gets confusing because the words are at least nominally about physical placement (The book is on the shelf, I was at the theater, She is in the house), but often describe things that are a bit more hazy, and that leads to confusing elements. For instance, you read something ON a website but IN a book.

 

There's probably a really fascinating study about this, but I'm not a linguist, so it's a bit above my pay grade.