First Day of the Week: Sunday vs. Monday

[Atticus]

I was 30 years under the impression that Monday is universally the first day, although I had an idea that it has once been Sunday (the first day of the week, that is, not Monday). So thinking that Sunday would be the first day would be even harder for me than measure things by yards or miles.

 

[Zelig]

Iso 8601 #1!

This is the best argument so far, but I tried switching to Monday, and it made all my calendar use really awkward.

 

[Winner]

Monday. Nobody in this country considers Sunday as the first day of the week, the thought is... absurd.

 

[classical_hero]

Not what I learned in my religion class.

Sunday as a day of work for God?? That makes no sense.

The reason why Sunday is now associated with being a day of Rest, is that the early Christians used that day to worship instead of Saturday or the Sabbath. The reason for this change is that they used the day Jesus rose from the dead as a day they would use to celebrate and worship God. Since Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, technically Sunday should be the start of the week, but considering who strong the roots of Christianity are in our culture, Sunday has became the last day of the week, since that is generally the day when people worshipped God.

 

[jtb1127]

I thought it was officially Sunday but since I'm given the choice I shall vote Monday.

 

[IglooDame]

There's very little difference between Saturday and Sunday for me. I don't go to bed Saturday night thinking "okay, new week starts tomorrow, what is on my list for it?" That does happen Sunday night, though. So, Monday is the first day of my week. Saturday and Sunday are my days of rest - I get two for five days of work instead of one for six because I can't sustain a deity's work schedule.

 

[warpus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Week-day_names#Numbered_weekdays

Icelandic, Hebrew, Ecclesiastical Latin, Portuguese, Greek, Armenian, Vietnamese, Malay, Arabic, Indonesian, Javanese, Sundanese, Persian, and Turkish against Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovak, Czech, Slovene, Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Hungarian, Estonian, and Mongorian.

I stand against Poland.

USA #1

Screw you, you Poland hater!

I view Monday as the first day of the week (cause, c'mon, that makes the most sense), but on a calendar I'll have the week start with Sunday cause I'm just used to that I guess. It looks nicer!

The week doesn't start until I come into work on the first day (Monday), sit down at my desk, and open reddit.

How do I reconcile these two seemingly incompatible points of view? I don't really give a crap

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

I consider Sunday the first day of the week because it's the first day of the week. That's the day I use for the first day of the week when I can customize my calendar, and that's the day you use for the first day of the week because that's the first day of the week.

+1

I stopped reading this here. This is all I need.

 

[timtofly]

For all you Sunday haters, you can start working on Sunday. Some of us like to start our week out doing nothing. Technically the first day starts Saturday Sundown. Allowing two days of rest was very generous. One day should be sufficient.

 

[warpus]

For all you Sunday haters, you can start working on Sunday. Some of us like to start our week out doing nothing. Technically the first day starts Saturday Sundown. Allowing two days of rest was very generous. One day should be sufficient.

Sunday is a part of the WeekEND.

How can the first day of the week be a part of the end of the week?

Then again maybe your weekend only includes Saturday, what the hell do I know

 

[timtofly]

Sunday is a part of the WeekEND.

How can the first day of the week be a part of the end of the week?

Then again maybe your weekend only includes Saturday, what the hell do I know

No one had weekends until the labor laws were passed allowing both days. Sunday was the only "end". Like I said we liked to start off our week doing nothing. Now if you were a Jew, you had to figure out how to rest on an abnormal day. The last day of the work week was Saturday when you were supposed to be resting.

The "western" civs advocated that Monday be when the "work" week started, generally there was no weekend. BC always had the work week starting on Sunday. The Sabbath was the "holy day". It was the Christians that set aside Sunday as the "rest day".

 

[LucyDuke]

There's very little difference between Saturday and Sunday for me. I don't go to bed Saturday night thinking "okay, new week starts tomorrow, what is on my list for it?" That does happen Sunday night, though. So, Monday is the first day of my week. Saturday and Sunday are my days of rest - I get two for five days of work instead of one for six because I can't sustain a deity's work schedule.

How could you!

You're American!

Where the hell do you buy your calendars?!

 

[Truthy]

I consider Sunday to be the first day of the week even though it shouldn't be.

 

[timtofly]

I consider Sunday to be the first day of the week even though it shouldn't be.

Well since the sun is the most predominent thing in ..... Since the moon is .... You can blame the ancients from India who decided to call their first day of the week sunday and the next one moonday. They could have at least figured out that a day started in the evening and then the Moon would have been the first planet to start the week out.

 

[IglooDame]

How could you!

You're American!

Where the hell do you buy your calendars?!

I have no idea, my wife acquires them. They do happen to show Sunday on the left side and Saturday on the right, but I don't let myself be constrained by mere parochial tradition. Free your mind, your workweek will follow! We have nothing to lose but our dayplanners!

 

[Cheetah]

This is the best argument so far, but I tried switching to Monday, and it made all my calendar use really awkward.

How? That's a question to all you Sunday-First users, I don't really get the problem.

Starting on Monday means that you have five work-days combined. Then two free days combined. There are several good things about this:

1. It implicitly teaches that one first has to do the work before one can have a time of to enjoy the fruits of one's labour. Monday-First teaches good work morals.

2. If you go away during the weekend, you can see the entire trip in one bloc on your calendar, instead of seeing you leaving on Friday or Saturday, then having to write something again on the Sunday that is all the way on the left side - and even one row down! - to show that you're coming back. Monday-First makes your calendar neater and easier to read.

3. If you're Christian, then you get Sunday - the holy, seventh day - when God rested, as the correctly seventh day of the week. Clearly Monday-First is more in line with God's will.

4. In the interest of being encompassing for all the Abrahamic religions, Monday-First concentrates all the spiritually most important days - Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Jews and Sunday for Christians - in one easy to comprehend bloc. Much better than having them split on two sides of the calendar.

5. Monday-First is the internationally agreed upon standard. Standards are good. Therefore, Monday-First is good.

 

[warpus]

As much as I would love Monday to be the 2nd day of the week, it just isn't

 

[LucyDuke]

I'm not buying your smiley-face propaganda, Cheetah!

 

[EnglishCrusader]

How? That's a question to all you Sunday-First users, I don't really get the problem.

Starting on Monday means that you have five work-days combined. Then two free days combined. There are several good things about this:

1. It implicitly teaches that one first has to do the work before one can have a time of to enjoy the fruits of one's labour. Monday-First teaches good work morals.

2. If you go away during the weekend, you can see the entire trip in one bloc on your calendar, instead of seeing you leaving on Friday or Saturday, then having to write something again on the Sunday that is all the way on the left side - and even one row down! - to show that you're coming back. Monday-First makes your calendar neater and easier to read.

3. If you're Christian, then you get Sunday - the holy, seventh day - when God rested, as the correctly seventh day of the week. Clearly Monday-First is more in line with God's will.

4. In the interest of being encompassing for all the Abrahamic religions, Monday-First concentrates all the spiritually most important days - Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Jews and Sunday for Christians - in one easy to comprehend bloc. Much better than having them split on two sides of the calendar.

5. Monday-First is the internationally agreed upon standard. Standards are good. Therefore, Monday-First is good.

Sunday-First is what most people were grown up with. It's like them using metric/imperial based on what they grew up with, and getting them to change it would be pretty hard.

 

[LucyDuke]

I don't think "most people were grown up with" it. At all. They're all wrong, of course, the ones that weren't, but they were raised that way.