Relative time period without anchor

'Last week', 'this quarter', 'next fiscal year' — relative periods age out of meaning within months.

What ProfText flags

Relative time period without anchor date. Ages quickly.

How to fix it

Add reference date: 'Q3 2025' or 'as of 2025-01-15'.

Why this matters

Periods like 'last quarter' or 'this fiscal year' carry implicit dependence on when the reader encounters them. In live conversation that's fine; in archived documents it's a failure mode. Anchor with explicit quarters ('Q3 2025') or fiscal-year designations ('FY2024–25') so the reference is locked at the time of writing.

Languages

• en
• fr
• de
• it

Detection pattern

\b(last|next|this|previous|current|upcoming)\s+(week|month|quarter|year|fiscal year)\b

Related rules

• Relative month without year'Last May', 'next March', 'this October' — relative month references become ambiguous within twelve months of writing.
• 'Recently', 'currently', 'nowadays' — vague temporal markersWords like 'recently' and 'currently' carry no anchor date. Readers a year later have no way to know what was meant.
• 'Early', 'late', 'mid' month or season'Early spring', 'late October', 'mid-summer' — common shorthand that loses meaning without the year.