Since I have to work on Monday, I consider Sunday the first day of the week cause I can’t stay up late or I won’t get up on time in the morning. If that makes any sense.
For practical purposes, Monday - although if it were Sunday and I was talking about something happening the following Tuesday, I would say “later this week” instead of “next week.” In Korea, however, the week really does begin on Monday. So Koreans would say next week to refer to the week following Sunday, instead of this week.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I don’t wish to labour the point, but how would that argument make any sense at all?, given that we know for a fact that Christians changed the rest day from Saturday to Sunday.
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That’s not really the case. Due to the Resurrection, they changed the day of worship from the Sabbath to Sunday, but that’s not the same as changing the “day of rest.” (In brief, many under the broad umbrella of Christendom declare that the Sabbath no longer applies after the Resurrection. A full discussion of this would be beyond the scope of this thread, though.)
Your basic point is correct, though. The Sabbath is Saturday, rather than Sunday. That makes Saturday the seventh day of the week.
I work in broadcasting. Monday is the first day of the week, the day starts at 6am (5am in Central and Mountain) and the month is over on the last Sunday of the month. It’s a quirk that broadcast December happens to end on Dec 31 this year.
[QUOTE=JThunder]
Your basic point is correct, though. The Sabbath is Saturday, rather than Sunday. That makes Saturday the seventh day of the week.
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Good to know. I’d never realised that the day or worship and the Sabbath were two different things.
Either way, I still consider Monday the first day of the week–Sunday is almost a non-day in my mind. It’s when everything is closed and the only places to go are church and flea markets, or finish (and possibly start) that essay you left until the last minute.
[QUOTE=panache45]
We use the word “weekend” to mean Saturday and Sunday. So the week starts on Monday.
[/QUOTE]
Sunday.
Weeks, like pieces of string, have two ends.
[QUOTE=delphica]
If I was answering a quiz and the question was “What’s the first day of the week?” I would say “Sunday.” But for practical purposes, I think of Monday as the first day of the work week.
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This perfectly echos my feelings about it.
I don’t know what agency is the authority on this in America (NIST maybe), but I was taught the week started on Sunday, even though that doesn’t make sense from a working stiff’s perspective.
Just thought of something… Genesis 1 – the “Genesis” story – goes day by day.
Now the days in the story are not named, they are simply “One day,” “Second Day,” Third day…" These names have “stuck” in Hebrew down throiugh history – so Sunday in Hebrew is simply “First Day,” Monday is, you guessed it, “Second Day,” etc…
The correspondence becomes very clear – Sunday == First Day.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
To me, it depends on the context:
Sunday is the beginning of the calendar week; the calendar week is seven days long.
Monday is the beginning of the working week, but the working week is five days long and is followed by the weekend (a separate entity), which begins on Saturday.
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QFT.
As far as “weekend”:
It is an end, not an ending.
In a literary sense, there is only one “ending” (The End) , yet a board or a piece of string, or even a hallway always has two “ends”
I have always considered that Saturday was the finish end of one week, and Sunday the starting end of the next. Thus the two days are indeed both ends…just of two different weeks.
[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
U.S. calendars have Sunday first because Western tradition has considered Sunday to be the first day of the week for a couple thousand years
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Depends on your definition of Western tradition, I suppose. I live in Sweden and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a calendar with Sunday first.
Monday’s the first day of the week; otherwise calling Saturday & Sunday part of the same weekend is silly.
Insert cliche when-Skald-is-emperor-of-the-earth-his-opinion-will-be-law joke here.
[QUOTE=JThunder]
That’s not really the case. Due to the Resurrection, they changed the day of worship from the Sabbath to Sunday, but that’s not the same as changing the “day of rest.” (In brief, many under the broad umbrella of Christendom declare that the Sabbath no longer applies after the Resurrection. A full discussion of this would be beyond the scope of this thread, though.)
[/quote]
Fair enough; I stopped short of calling it ‘The Sabbath’, but evidently did not stop short enough. Some Christians do refer to Sunday as the ‘day of rest’ or The Sabbath, but that probably came later still, if it isn’t just entirely erroneous.
Yes. Thanks.
Monday’s the first day of the week. Having said that, I still like the setup in calenders where the first day of the week is Sunday and the last is Saturday. I dunno why…
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Some Christians do refer to Sunday as the ‘day of rest’ or The Sabbath, but that probably came later still, if it isn’t just entirely erroneous.
[/QUOTE]
It is indeed common – distressingly so. The bottom line is that they’re laboring under a misconception of what the Sabbath is.
Weeks begin on Saturday, sillies, for at least all 136,000+ employees of my company. I’ve been so indoctrinated for almost 8 years that this entire discussion seems strange to me.
[QUOTE=Kyla]
I was delighted when I received a 2007 calendar from Australia from one of the Dopers as part of my postcard project that has Sunday as the first day of the week.
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As an Aussie with 3 different calendars (two at home and one at work) the results are in:
New Scientist and Education Dept calendars = Monday
Lonely Planet calendar = Sunday
So - based off that incredibly wide sample 
- it seems we go either way.
My fiscal week begins on Wednesdays…
I vote neither.
tsfr
[QUOTE=ivylass]
I work in broadcasting. Monday is the first day of the week, the day starts at 6am (5am in Central and Mountain) and the month is over on the last Sunday of the month. It’s a quirk that broadcast December happens to end on Dec 31 this year.
[/QUOTE]
My birthday, incidentally.
I always go by the calendar, so for me, it’s Sunday.
But when I lived in England, all the calendars there have the monthly calendars go M-Su. This drove me crazy because I’d just look at the first/second/third/etc. column and extrapolate future dates without ever remembering that I had to shift one day over. I screwed up more hostel & hotel reservations because of this. :mad: