diff --git a/django/utils/timesince.py b/django/utils/timesince.py
index 511acb518a..276108b55a 100644
--- a/django/utils/timesince.py
+++ b/django/utils/timesince.py
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ import datetime
 from django.utils.timezone import is_aware, utc
 from django.utils.translation import ungettext, ugettext
 
-def timesince(d, now=None):
+def timesince(d, now=None, reversed=False):
     """
     Takes two datetime objects and returns the time between d and now
     as a nicely formatted string, e.g. "10 minutes".  If d occurs after now,
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ def timesince(d, now=None):
     if not now:
         now = datetime.datetime.now(utc if is_aware(d) else None)
 
-    delta = now - d
+    delta = (d - now) if reversed else (now - d)
     # ignore microseconds
     since = delta.days * 24 * 60 * 60 + delta.seconds
     if since <= 0:
@@ -57,6 +57,4 @@ def timeuntil(d, now=None):
     Like timesince, but returns a string measuring the time until
     the given time.
     """
-    if not now:
-        now = datetime.datetime.now(utc if is_aware(d) else None)
-    return timesince(now, d)
+    return timesince(d, now, reversed=True)
diff --git a/tests/regressiontests/utils/timesince.py b/tests/regressiontests/utils/timesince.py
index b0f94d182b..a4d479ad3e 100644
--- a/tests/regressiontests/utils/timesince.py
+++ b/tests/regressiontests/utils/timesince.py
@@ -99,12 +99,18 @@ class TimesinceTests(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(timesince(now_tz), u'0 minutes')
         self.assertEqual(timeuntil(now_tz, now_tz_i), u'0 minutes')
 
+    def test_date_objects(self):
+        """ Both timesince and timeuntil should work on date objects (#17937). """
+        today = datetime.date.today()
+        self.assertEqual(timesince(today + self.oneday), u'0 minutes')
+        self.assertEqual(timeuntil(today - self.oneday), u'0 minutes')
+
     def test_both_date_objects(self):
         """ Timesince should work with both date objects (#9672) """
         today = datetime.date.today()
-        self.assertEqual(timeuntil(today+self.oneday, today), u'1 day')
-        self.assertEqual(timeuntil(today-self.oneday, today), u'0 minutes')
-        self.assertEqual(timeuntil(today+self.oneweek, today), u'1 week')
+        self.assertEqual(timeuntil(today + self.oneday, today), u'1 day')
+        self.assertEqual(timeuntil(today - self.oneday, today), u'0 minutes')
+        self.assertEqual(timeuntil(today + self.oneweek, today), u'1 week')
 
     def test_naive_datetime_with_tzinfo_attribute(self):
         class naive(datetime.tzinfo):