Totally OT -- Calendars

[HVS]

When I was a kid in Canada -- 1950s and 60s -- the only calendar layout that I knew of had Sunday as the start of the week, on the left side of the calendar, and it never occurred to me that a calendar could be laid out differently.

I don't know when I first saw a calendar with Monday starting the week

-- 20 or 30 years ago maybe? -- but it still throws me every time. ("Why is Wednesday where Tuesday should be?")

Is this geographical? (I might have come across a Monday-first calendar in Europe, and my wife (who tends to prefer a Monday-starter) was raised in New Zealand.

Technical, perhaps? (Computer clocks might have been programmed by a nerd harbouring some obscure logical fixation which they want to force the rest of the world to adopt....)

(Yes, I've got too much time on my hands today.)

[Colin Bignell]

It is probably related to most businesses starting their working week on a Monday, at least in the days when they still hung calendars on the wall.

[nib]

Many businesses, especially continental, use ISO week numbers, which start on a Monday.

nib

[Ian Jackson]

IIRC, the Bible says that God worked for six days making the world, and on the seventh (the Sabbath Day, Sunday) He rested (and subsequently commanded everyone to do the same, and to keep it holy). The Bible doesn't say that He had a rest before doing His work. I guess that Sunday (the 'Lord's Day') became regarded as the first day of the week because of a misplaced respect for God, but it's pretty obvious that it should be the last day.

[Joe]

Bear in mind that the Old Testament is a Jewish scripture, and their holy day is Saturday.

[Ian Jackson]

In message [e-mail]>, Joe [e-mail] writes

Obviously this is because God began first in the Holy Land, but waited until he got into the swing of things before starting the following day doing the six days of work required to create the world elsewhere.

[Bob Henson]

According to William Blake, Jerusalem was built "in England's green and pleasant land." Mind, he was more than a bit barking, but the Holy Grail is supposed to be at Glastonbury so maybe he was right.......or on the funny cigarettes at the Festival.

[Ian Jackson]

But of course, Blake was only speaking figuratively in his rebellious poem. Despite the despoliation of the industrial revolution, England could again be transformed to be like Jerusalem, the Golden City (something like what the Brexiteers promised us).

[The Natural Philosopher]

A typical ArtStudent comment where "it's pretty obvious" = "There is no discernible reason whatsoever"...

The next thing you will be saying its that its obvious that a metre is the exact length of God's Penis....

[Bob Henson]

She hasn't got one.

[Scott]

I never followed that. By that logic (as you suggest) Sunday would be day 7 not day 1.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Proves my point really

[Sam Plusnet]

Well, it was an astronomer from Florence, Francesco Sizzi, who quoted Francis Bacon to 'prove'[1] that there could only be 7 planets - because there are 7 holes in the human head.

[1] Thus refuting the work of that upstart Galileo.