Week commencing ????

beyond the blue

beyond the blue

Suspended / Banned
Messages
2,036
Name
Neil
Edit My Images
Yes
As a kid I was always taught that "Sunday" was the start of a new week. Over the last few years it appears to have changed to "Monday". Now I know the start of a working week as been known as "week commencing Monday the ???" but today I've just heard a radio advert for a UK Sunday newspaper refer to it being the last day. I recon this is the influence of the damned Yanks again because Microsoft calender's start the week with Monday. Rant over.
 
My week starts on Saturday. On account of any weekend overtime I work gets paid with the following weeks money.
 
Sunday is part of the weekend, therefore Monday is the first day of the week. All of the diary/planners I've used through school and work have always had Monday as the first day on the page with Sunday as the last.

Having a quick google around, most calendars seem to have Sunday as the first day, our Ecommerce software allows us to select either Sunday or Monday as the first day of the week
 
Last edited:
Cartus said:
I've always understood that Sunday is the beginning of the week but it's always felt like Sunday has been the last day of the week and you kick off a new week on Monday morning :)
Click to expand...
When I was a kid, I read a book about numbers and dates in general. Sunday was the first day of the week because it was named for the Sun. Stems from Egyptians.

However, I agree it feels like the end of the week since we start work on Mondays. I imagine it'd be the same if we all decided we should work Tuesdays and have Mondays off. Monday would then feel like the end of the week and not the start.
 
beyond the blue said:
As a kid I was always taught that "Sunday" was the start of a new week. Over the last few years it appears to have changed to "Monday". Now I know the start of a working week as been known as "week commencing Monday the ???" but today I've just heard a radio advert for a UK Sunday newspaper refer to it being the last day. I recon this is the influence of the damned Yanks again because Microsoft calender's start the week with Monday. Rant over.
Click to expand...

My Outlook calendar shows Sunday as the first day of the week...don't know if you can change it, but this is how it came out of the box.
 
beyond the blue said:
As a kid I was always taught that "Sunday" was the start of a new week. Over the last few years it appears to have changed to "Monday". Now I know the start of a working week as been known as "week commencing Monday the ???" but today I've just heard a radio advert for a UK Sunday newspaper refer to it being the last day. I recon this is the influence of the damned Yanks again because Microsoft calender's start the week with Monday. Rant over.
Click to expand...

Well that shows you just had the wrong teacher, we all know god created the heavens and earth and it took him/her (just to be politically correct) 6 days and on the seventh he/she rested, ;);) see below

http://www.vatican.va/archive/bible/genesis/documents/bible_genesis_en.html
 
Surely the Vatican nicked the bits of an older book whose readers celebrate Saturday as the day of rest...
 
Been a long while!!!
 
You can't blame the USA. In calendars on macOS or iOS you can choose to start the week on any day.
 
beyond the blue said:
"Behave" you can blame the USA for everything!
Click to expand...
No it's time the English grew up and stopped either sucking up to the US (e.g. Special Relationship) or blaming them for everything.
 
Or indeed, all religions' faults!
 
Nod said:
Or indeed, all religions' faults!
Click to expand...
Interestingly, it makes no difference to the sense of the sentence where the 'postrophe* is put in this case.
* see what I did there.
 
Having been retired for several years not only do I not know what day of the week it is I no longer give a toss. My days are gauged by sunny or rainy

So please work hard so there's less people around when I go out to play :banana::banana::banana::beer::beer::beer::banana::banana::banana:
 
omens said:
When I was a kid, I read a book about numbers and dates in general. Sunday was the first day of the week because it was named for the Sun. Stems from Egyptians.

However, I agree it feels like the end of the week since we start work on Mondays. I imagine it'd be the same if we all decided we should work Tuesdays and have Mondays off. Monday would then feel like the end of the week and not the start.
Click to expand...
We will do if Jeremy cobyns looney left win the election :wave::wave::wave:
 
MartynK said:
My Outlook calendar shows Sunday as the first day of the week...don't know if you can change it, but this is how it came out of the box.
Click to expand...
sphexx said:
You can't blame the USA. In calendars on macOS or iOS you can choose to start the week on any day.
Click to expand...
But it is an American thing. If you look at printed calendars, British ones tend to start the week on a Monday, and American ones almost always start the week on a Sunday. Personally I feel that from a practical point of view it makes sense to print Saturday and Sunday next to one another, because it makes it so much easier to denote events which span the weekend. Still, why would we expect the USA to bother with international standards?
 
StewartR said:
But it is an American thing. If you look at printed calendars, British ones tend to start the week on a Monday, and American ones almost always start the week on a Sunday. Personally I feel that from a practical point of view it makes sense to print Saturday and Sunday next to one another, because it makes it so much easier to denote events which span the weekend. Still, why would we expect the USA to bother with international standards?
Click to expand...

And all the other countries on the planet?
 
StewartR said:
Sorry, I don't understand. What about all the other countries on the planet?
Click to expand...

You seem to want to blame the US for what you perceive as a calendar "wrong".
Of all the other countries who use a compatible calendar format, which version is most widely used?
 
viv1969 said:
You seem to want to blame the US for what you perceive as a calendar "wrong".
Of all the other countries who use a compatible calendar format, which version is most widely used?
Click to expand...

That's a good point and an interesting question. I don't know the answer but now I feel as if I'm going to have to research it.

As for the US, I believe 'Sunday first' is the American standard, and I believe the fact it's the American standard is probably the reason it's so common in software (eg Outlook). Both of these beliefs are more-or-less testable.

I also believe 'Sunday first' is wrong for a number of reasons, but that's just my opinion.
 
viv1969 said:
Of all the other countries who use a compatible calendar format, which version is most widely used?
Click to expand...
StewartR said:
I don't know the answer but now I feel as if I'm going to have to research it.
Click to expand...
OK, some empirical data.

calendar-365.com is a website that displays calendars containing US holiday dates. At the bottom of the page on the desktop site (but not the mobile site) are a load of national flags. Clicking on one of them brings up a calendar in that country's language, with that country's holidays. (In fact they seem to be related sites, eg calendar-365.co.uk, kalendarz-365.pl, etc, but that's not important.) It's not comprehensive, but it's a decent sample.

USA - week starts on Sunday
UK - Monday
Brazil - Monday
Portugal - Monday
Spain - Monday
Italy - Monday
France - Monday
Germany - Monday
Belgium - Monday
Netherlands - Monday
Sweden - Monday
Denmark - Monday
Poland - Monday

Hmmm. What were we saying about the USA?
 
StewartR said:
Hmmm. What were we saying about the USA?
Click to expand...

"We" weren't saying anything. :-)
But you just proved that just because the yanks do something one way, doesn't mean others automatically follow suit. :-)
 
Always thought of Monday as the commencement of a new week.
It comes after the week END.;)
 
By that logic, Friday is the end of the week so must be the weekend, making Saturday the first day of the week...
 
viv1969 said:
But you just proved that just because the yanks do something one way, doesn't mean others automatically follow suit. :-)
Click to expand...
Or... Just because the whole of the rest of the world does something one way, doesn't mean that the yanks follow suit.
 
Since Christianity is a big thing in US it is a bit odd that they seem to start the week on Sunday. There must be an interesting historical reason for that -- possibly we used to do the same and they just haven't changed as is so often the case for so-called Americanisms in spelling etc.
 
sphexx said:
...possibly we used to do the same and they just haven't changed as is so often the case for so-called Americanisms in spelling etc.
Click to expand...
That sounds quite plausible. I feel that more research is needed...
 
This week my week started on Saturday. Last week it started Monday. It starts with whichever is the first working day of the week. Next week it could be Sunday.
 
StewartR said:
That sounds quite plausible. I feel that more research is needed...
Click to expand...
My thought is that the idea that "Sunday" came at the end of the week is that it depends on the Old (basically Jewish) Testament and maybe those early Protestant american English (and Germans, Scandinavians etc) weren't too keen on the OT. I think the Catholics aren't keen either - wasn't the OT on the Papal Index of banned books?
 
So are many of the books that would belong in the new testament - IF they suited the papacy!
 
Traditionally for Judeo-Christian cultures the last day of the week would be Saturday - the Sabbath, which actually ran from sundown on Friday night to Sundown Saturday - for reasons cited above, therefore Sunday would have been the first day of the week in nations with that background.

For some nations, Saturday is the first day apparently: http://chartsbin.com/view/41671
 
sphexx said:
My thought is that the idea that "Sunday" came at the end of the week is that it depends on the Old (basically Jewish) Testament and maybe those early Protestant american English (and Germans, Scandinavians etc) weren't too keen on the OT. I think the Catholics aren't keen either - wasn't the OT on the Papal Index of banned books?
Click to expand...

Nod said:
So are many of the books that would belong in the new testament - IF they suited the papacy!
Click to expand...

Not too much to do with the pope specifically, and there were international committees that sorted out what was authentic & historically consistent from what was not. The OT could never have been on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, since it was an integral part of scripture used by all branches of the Christian church. Also the 'index' was recent - 1559 - compared to the decisions made about what went into the bible in the 4th century.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Traditionally for Judeo-Christian cultures the last day of the week would be Saturday - the Sabbath, which actually ran from sundown on Friday night to Sundown Saturday - for reasons cited above, therefore Sunday would have been the first day of the week in nations with that background.

For some nations, Saturday is the first day apparently: http://chartsbin.com/view/41671
Click to expand...

Certainly the case in the middle east.
 
ancient_mariner said:
For some nations, Saturday is the first day apparently: http://chartsbin.com/view/41671
Click to expand...
I saw that. But it's sourced from a Reddit thread where the accuracy of the underlying data is disputed. And the Reddit contributor doesn't say where he got the information from.

I don't know where one can get accurate data on this. For example I previously mentioned calendar-365.com and its associated country-specific websites. But there's also timeanddate.com which can produce calendars for over 200 countries and semi-autonomous territories, each one showing the public holidays for that country and each one formatted according to which day of the week customarily appears first in that country. Or so they claim. Trouble is, it doesn't agree with calendar-365.com. (For example Brazil is Monday according to calendario-365.com.br but Sunday according to timeanddate.com.)

The best and most widely-used diary and calendar publishing software is probably Q++ Studio, so if anybody knows which is the first day of the week in every country it's probably them. Their website has a very comprehensive list of worldwide public holidays which is regularly updated and free to use, but unfortunately they're not giving away the info about the first day of the week.
 
Fairy snuff. I can't verify the data (although Ruth's corroboration is useful) since it's just a random page I found on t'intarwebs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top