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> Weeks start on Sunday in the United States, Monday in Europe, and a couple of places start on Saturday. Wow. I live in Europe, and find it weird that people

> Weeks start on Sunday in the United States, Monday in Europe, and a couple of places start on Saturday. Wow. I live in Europe, and find it weird that people can consider the week to start on Sunday. I guess everything that may appear normal within a cultural frame of reference can be off in another, even the most basic of things!

thaumasiotes 8y ago
What is the relevance of saying that a week starts on a particular day? In the most common usage, the "week" starts on Monday in the United States, and concludes on Friday, to be followed by the "weekend". A calendar week of 7 days does start on Sunday, but who cares? If they changed how the calendars were printed, life would be different in no way.
- NewsAware 8y ago
  Well for me as Dev it changes how I render a week calendar to a user
- netgusto 8y ago
  So for all intents and purposes, the week actually starts on Monday in the US, if I understand what you're saying. For instance, if I were to tell you "Beginning of next week, I'm gonna X", you'd understand Monday, correct?
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    If you said that to me at work, I'd understand Monday, because Sunday is not part of the work week. I'd likely understand it as Monday in other contexts too, because it's very rare for something to start on Sunday. Monday and Saturday are the transition points and thus the logical places to start doing something. But I might understand it as Sunday if context seemed to point that way. What I'm saying is that nothing is organized according to "the beginning of the week", so the question of which day is the beginning of the week doesn't have any implications.
    - bloak 8y ago
      No hard implications, but it might influence how you number the days (C99's tm_wday uses 0-6 with 0 = Sunday, which suggests a week starting with Sunday, particularly since tm_mon uses 0-11 with 0 = January, but is also compatible with the way the days are numbered in Chinese, with Monday = 1), and it might be related to how you work out which months have 4 weeks and which months have 5 weeks: it's unusual, but some part-time employees get 4 weeks' pay at the end of most months but 5 weeks' pay at the end of some months, bizarrely.
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        > it's unusual, but some part-time employees get 4 weeks' pay at the end of most months but 5 weeks' pay at the end of some months, bizarrely. Why would this be unusual? I'd expect pay-by-the-week to be more common for part-time employees, but it's not rare for FTEs either.
- unwind 8y ago
  In parts of the world, weeks of the year are numbered, so that you can talk about things happening "in week 43", and so on. For such a system, it's of course quite important to agree on which day a new week begins. Also (again, as a European) it feels very odd to not have the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) be at the end of the week, but instead "straddle" between two weeks. I found the original article a bit strange in it's partitioning of the world into { US, Europe, some places }, I feel that is giving ... undue weight to the US convention, but I haven't studied this to see if I'm right.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    In the US, weeks are not numbered, and the way to refer to a week is e.g. "the week of the 10th". (If you're talking about a different month, "the week of September 10th".) You would usually name the Monday of the week because the context is usually work-related. I question whether "Thursday of week 37" is really that much clearer than "Thursday, September 13".
    - Tor3 8y ago
      Indeed, it isn't. I'm living in a country where my company as well as our (foreign) customers use week numbers all the time. It's painful. My watch doesn't show the week number. A normal calendar doesn't. The company calendars do, but there's never one nearby when I need one. So I have a bookmark in my web browser to a 'week calendar' on the net. I can use a 'date' command, but the actual +%<something> syntax always disappear from my mind, so I have to look it up. Week numbers is just a pain. You can't even be sure about week 1 or week 52, it depends on the weekdays that year.
      - macintux 8y ago
        I wrote a date parsing library and spent a fair bit of time trying to wrap my brain around week numbers. Definitely messy. It never occurred to me to check my Apple Watch for a week number complication. A bit disappointed it's not there, even if I'd never use it. Update: you can install an app to Apple Watch that supplies a complication for it. "Current Week".
stevoski 8y ago
> I live in Europe, and find it weird that people can consider the week to start on Sunday. You are almost certainly neither Portuguese nor Maltese. In these two European languages, the days of the week are literally numbered as if Sunday were the first day of the week. Portuguese: Monday is "segunda-feira" which means something like "second market day" Maltese: Monday is "it-Tnejn", which AFAICT means "the second [day]" In both languages, most of the other days have similar names, representing their position in a week that starts on Sunday.
- erfgh 8y ago
  It's the same in Greek, Monday means "Second" but still, everybody considers it the first day of the week.
AllegedAlec 8y ago
> Wow. I live in Europe, and find it weird that people can consider the week to start on Sunday. Netherlands reporting in. My parents always taught me that the week starts on Sunday.
- disillusion 8y ago
  Funny, I'm Dutch and I learned the week starts on Monday. Well, except for strongly religious families.
  - AllegedAlec 8y ago
    My parents were pretty religious in their youths, and were from conservative parts of the country. Perhaps that has something to do with it.
svckr 8y ago
I mean … I was aware of the fact that the week starts on Sunday in a LOT of other places. But still. So Sunday, the first day of the week, is still part of what's called the weekend, right?
- Tactic 8y ago
  Correct. Which, if one thinks about it, the start of something is one end of it. (said tongue in cheek)
- ardy42 8y ago
  > I mean … I was aware of the fact that the week starts on Sunday in a LOT of other places. But still. > So Sunday, the first day of the week, is still part of what's called the weekend, right? I've always interpreted "the weekend" as a shortening of "the weekends." Sunday is at one "end" of the week and Saturday is at the other "end." Sort of like a if you hold a stick out, there's a "near end" and "far end."
JdeBP 8y ago
It's not a U.S./Europe dichotomy. The first day of the week being Sunday is a Judaeo-Christian, and Islamic, thing. For countries with these as official religions you will find that offically Sunday is still the first day of the week for many purposes. For example: In the U.K., officially still Protestant, a week for the purposes of statutory sick/maternity/paternity pay or national insurance begins on a Sunday. Sunday trading legislation was talking about weeks commencing on Sunday as recently as 1950. * http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1640/article/2/made http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1640/article/2/made * http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/14/28/section/22/enacted http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/14/28/section/22/en... If you think that millennia-old traditions, which you can still find observed in Europe if you look, are weird then academic weeks beginning at noon on Wednesday, examples of which can also be found in both the U.S. and Europe, will probably blow your mind.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

What is the relevance of saying that a week starts on a particular day? In the most common usage, the "week" starts on Monday in the United States, and concludes on Friday, to be followed by the "weekend". A calendar week of 7 days does start on Sunday, but who cares? If they changed how the calendars were printed, life would be different in no way.

NewsAware 8y ago
Well for me as Dev it changes how I render a week calendar to a user
netgusto 8y ago
So for all intents and purposes, the week actually starts on Monday in the US, if I understand what you're saying. For instance, if I were to tell you "Beginning of next week, I'm gonna X", you'd understand Monday, correct?
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  If you said that to me at work, I'd understand Monday, because Sunday is not part of the work week. I'd likely understand it as Monday in other contexts too, because it's very rare for something to start on Sunday. Monday and Saturday are the transition points and thus the logical places to start doing something. But I might understand it as Sunday if context seemed to point that way. What I'm saying is that nothing is organized according to "the beginning of the week", so the question of which day is the beginning of the week doesn't have any implications.
  - bloak 8y ago
    No hard implications, but it might influence how you number the days (C99's tm_wday uses 0-6 with 0 = Sunday, which suggests a week starting with Sunday, particularly since tm_mon uses 0-11 with 0 = January, but is also compatible with the way the days are numbered in Chinese, with Monday = 1), and it might be related to how you work out which months have 4 weeks and which months have 5 weeks: it's unusual, but some part-time employees get 4 weeks' pay at the end of most months but 5 weeks' pay at the end of some months, bizarrely.
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      > it's unusual, but some part-time employees get 4 weeks' pay at the end of most months but 5 weeks' pay at the end of some months, bizarrely. Why would this be unusual? I'd expect pay-by-the-week to be more common for part-time employees, but it's not rare for FTEs either.
unwind 8y ago
In parts of the world, weeks of the year are numbered, so that you can talk about things happening "in week 43", and so on. For such a system, it's of course quite important to agree on which day a new week begins. Also (again, as a European) it feels very odd to not have the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) be at the end of the week, but instead "straddle" between two weeks. I found the original article a bit strange in it's partitioning of the world into { US, Europe, some places }, I feel that is giving ... undue weight to the US convention, but I haven't studied this to see if I'm right.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  In the US, weeks are not numbered, and the way to refer to a week is e.g. "the week of the 10th". (If you're talking about a different month, "the week of September 10th".) You would usually name the Monday of the week because the context is usually work-related. I question whether "Thursday of week 37" is really that much clearer than "Thursday, September 13".
  - Tor3 8y ago
    Indeed, it isn't. I'm living in a country where my company as well as our (foreign) customers use week numbers all the time. It's painful. My watch doesn't show the week number. A normal calendar doesn't. The company calendars do, but there's never one nearby when I need one. So I have a bookmark in my web browser to a 'week calendar' on the net. I can use a 'date' command, but the actual +%<something> syntax always disappear from my mind, so I have to look it up. Week numbers is just a pain. You can't even be sure about week 1 or week 52, it depends on the weekdays that year.
    - macintux 8y ago
      I wrote a date parsing library and spent a fair bit of time trying to wrap my brain around week numbers. Definitely messy. It never occurred to me to check my Apple Watch for a week number complication. A bit disappointed it's not there, even if I'd never use it. Update: you can install an app to Apple Watch that supplies a complication for it. "Current Week".

stevoski 8y ago

> I live in Europe, and find it weird that people can consider the week to start on Sunday. You are almost certainly neither Portuguese nor Maltese. In these two European languages, the days of the week are literally numbered as if Sunday were the first day of the week. Portuguese: Monday is "segunda-feira" which means something like "second market day" Maltese: Monday is "it-Tnejn", which AFAICT means "the second [day]" In both languages, most of the other days have similar names, representing their position in a week that starts on Sunday.

erfgh 8y ago
It's the same in Greek, Monday means "Second" but still, everybody considers it the first day of the week.

AllegedAlec 8y ago

> Wow. I live in Europe, and find it weird that people can consider the week to start on Sunday. Netherlands reporting in. My parents always taught me that the week starts on Sunday.

disillusion 8y ago
Funny, I'm Dutch and I learned the week starts on Monday. Well, except for strongly religious families.
- AllegedAlec 8y ago
  My parents were pretty religious in their youths, and were from conservative parts of the country. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

svckr 8y ago

I mean … I was aware of the fact that the week starts on Sunday in a LOT of other places. But still. So Sunday, the first day of the week, is still part of what's called the weekend, right?

Tactic 8y ago
Correct. Which, if one thinks about it, the start of something is one end of it. (said tongue in cheek)
ardy42 8y ago
> I mean … I was aware of the fact that the week starts on Sunday in a LOT of other places. But still. > So Sunday, the first day of the week, is still part of what's called the weekend, right? I've always interpreted "the weekend" as a shortening of "the weekends." Sunday is at one "end" of the week and Saturday is at the other "end." Sort of like a if you hold a stick out, there's a "near end" and "far end."

JdeBP 8y ago

It's not a U.S./Europe dichotomy. The first day of the week being Sunday is a Judaeo-Christian, and Islamic, thing. For countries with these as official religions you will find that offically Sunday is still the first day of the week for many purposes. For example: In the U.K., officially still Protestant, a week for the purposes of statutory sick/maternity/paternity pay or national insurance begins on a Sunday. Sunday trading legislation was talking about weeks commencing on Sunday as recently as 1950. * http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1640/article/2/made http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/1640/article/2/made * http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/14/28/section/22/enacted http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/14/28/section/22/en... If you think that millennia-old traditions, which you can still find observed in Europe if you look, are weird then academic weeks beginning at noon on Wednesday, examples of which can also be found in both the U.S. and Europe, will probably blow your mind.