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I am confused about the following sentence:

"By the sophomore year, the student should apply for special education services"

Does it mean the students should do it before the 2nd year begins or just after OR it should be done before the end of the 2nd year?

In typical examples, like: "I need to do it by tomorrow" or "By the time we got there, the film had started" it doesn't seem to matter, but what if the period is a year?

EDIT: There's been an error on my part. The original sentence reads:

"By senior year, and/or prior to age 18, apply for..."

though the question remains...

EDIT2: There's actually more examples: See https://books.google.pl/books?id=FS0cAlDkRnEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=pl#v=onepage&q&f=false

pages 30-31.

Jules Cocovin
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  • What is the source of your example? It seems strange to me. – Greybeard Apr 07 '20 at 08:49
  • My memory. But I checked and it reads exactly as follows: By senior year, and/or prior to age 18, apply for..." ("Preparing For Life" - J. Baker). Sorry. But the question still stands, right? – Jules Cocovin Apr 07 '20 at 08:59
  • Thanks: with the context, the whole sentence now makes sense, (although it should be "By the senior year,"). By in this sense = before or at the time of. "By" is used in conjunction with a time phrase that is either limited or has an implied limit, rather than a duration. – Greybeard Apr 07 '20 at 09:28
  • To be crystal clear here (this is for translating purposes, so I need to choose my words wisely in the target language) "By the senior year" = "Before the senior year begins or on the first days of the senior year, but not when the senior year is in full swing"? – Jules Cocovin Apr 07 '20 at 09:51
  • 'The students should apply by June' is fine, but re-ordering doesn't work: *'By June, the students should apply'. I'd agree with @Greybeard that the sentence here is infelicitous. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 07 '20 at 14:05
  • @Edwin That's 2:0 for the "until the end of the time period" team, so I guess, yes, it probably does :) – Jules Cocovin Apr 07 '20 at 15:09
  • But note that 'By the sophomore year, the student should apply for special education services' is unacceptable. 'By the start of the sophomore year, the student should have applied for special education services' is clear, as is 'By the end of the sophomore year, the student should have applied for special education services'. – Edwin Ashworth Apr 07 '20 at 15:51
  • Does the unacceptability refer to the lack of the "the start of/the end of" bits or the should apply vs should have applied forms? Or both? – Jules Cocovin Apr 07 '20 at 17:22

1 Answers1

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“by” + time expression

The meaning of this structure is:  not later than; before or at a particular time

We use this structure for deadlines. A deadline is the time before which something must be done.

  1. Please send us the payment by tomorrow.
  2. Students must enrol by the end of June.

The use of by allows the person performing the task to complete it any time up until the specified time.

Alka Yadav
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