weekend
The term weekend (abbreviated WE ) generally refers to the period between the end of a normal working week and the start of the new working week. If a public holiday or a day off falls on a Friday or Monday, one also speaks of a "long" or an "extended" weekend.
history
Weekend
The word weekend appeared as a translation of the English word weekend in the early 20th century . This term had become common in England since the introduction of the free Saturday afternoon in the first half of the 19th century, politically enforced by Lord Shaftesbury . In the London daily newspaper The Times , the term first appeared in a classified ad in 1830 and then increasingly from 1833. Weekend has been adopted as a foreign word or loan word from many languages , for example into French, where the weekend is called week-end .
In its first issue in 1924, Der Herrenfahrer , a trade journal for motorists that is considered to be progressive, titled a travelogue “Weekend around Berlin”:
“Weekend - let's stay with the English word: the English have it, the German must first learn it - means lively rest. Recreation not through inactivity, which has a negative sign and, for those who affirm life, equates to boredom, but through doing something other than what working days require. Weekday work is a tied activity to achieve economic benefit, weekend rest is free activity which consciously refrains from any economic benefit and is directed towards the fulfillment of leisure with pure life values. The most wonderful instrument for weekend enjoyment is the automobile. It means the gentle, smooth release from the weekly obligation. "
Sunday as a holiday and rest day
Christians see the Sunday as the first day of the week, since Jesus Christ "in the early morning of the first day of the week" ( Mk 16.9 EU from the dead) rose was. While Judaism celebrates the Sabbath as God's day of rest after the creation of the world , Christians gather on Sunday. The Eucharist was celebrated on the first day of the week in the old church . The church father Justin Martyr wrote in his first apology: “On Sunday we all come together because it is the first day on which God drew the original material out of darkness and created the world, and because Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, arrives rose from the dead this day ”. After Christianity became the state religion, the Old Testament rules on keeping the Sabbath day holy were carried over to Sunday as the day of rest.
All Abrahamic religions have one day a week on which work should rest. In Islam , Friday is the weekly holiday on which the midday prayer is performed in the community and the preacher speaks to the community.
Since the adoption of the weekday counting according to ISO 8601 by the UN in 1978, however, most calendars around the world count Sunday as the seventh day. Saturday is generally part of the weekend as it is non-working in many industries.
Law
Germany
The legal term weekend is not legally defined in Germany . Rather, it is assumed and used by the legislature, among other things
- in the Pharmacies Act - Section 14 (7) sentence 2
- in the Recreational Leave Ordinance - Section 12 Paragraph 1
- in family law - the right of the parent who has no custody to see their children is often limited to individual weekends and a few weeks of vacation. In most cases, the parent is given the right to visit their children on two weekends each month. In this regard, it may be unclear whether the weekend starts on Friday evening or on Saturday morning. In some cases, court decisions also determine this in the dispositive . More recent decisions are based on the prevailing practice: Since the weekend for most of them already begins on Friday evening, this also applies to the right to visit.
Monday has been standardized as the beginning of the week in the Federal Republic of Germany since January 1, 1976 (EN 28601, ISO 8601 and DIN 1355); in the GDR this change came into force in 1969. As a result, the first weekend of the month begins on the first Saturday. This also taking into account the fact that Saturday is considered a working day.
Islamic states
In many Islamic countries, Friday is work-free, although the regulations differ from country to country and sometimes even within a country for members of different religious communities. When the work rest was extended to a weekend, Thursday became a day off in some countries in the Middle East (including in Saudi Arabia before June 29, 2013). Most states have taken Saturday off work instead of Thursday (including Egypt , Algeria , Syria and the United Arab Emirates ). The change from a Thursday to a Saturday off work has recently been justified by the fact that at the international level, four instead of three common working days with the non-Islamic world have been won. Some states like Iran do not yet have a weekend, with the exception of Friday they work at full speed.
Deviating regulations
- In the Sultanate of Brunei- Darussalam, Friday and Sunday are off work. Work is carried out on Saturdays, even if sometimes only part-time.
- In Malaysia there are regionally different regulations: in Johor , Kedah , Kelantan and Terengganu Friday and Saturday are non-working days, in the other regions however Saturday and Sunday.
- In Tunisia and Lebanon , as in western countries, Saturday and Sunday are the weekends. On Friday there is a break from work for those who want to attend the midday prayer in the mosque.
- In India , under the Weekly Holiday Act of 1942, every shop must be closed one day a week, but the owner can choose the day of the week.
Holidays on weekends
Reclaimed and pre-celebrated holidays
Some holidays always fall on a Sunday per se. In some countries, public holidays, if they fall on a Sunday or Saturday, are "made up" for the following week, sometimes brought forward to Friday.
In the United States in 1971, President Nixon's Uniform Monday Holiday Act put five public holidays on one Monday to give U.S. citizens a long weekend:
- George Washington's Birthday : 3rd Monday in February
- Memorial Day : last Monday in May
- Labor Day : 1st Monday in September (most countries celebrate Labor Day on May 1st)
- Columbus Day : 2nd Monday in October
- Veterans Day : 4th Monday in October
The 3rd Monday in January also celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (instead of January 15), but this holiday did not exist when the law was introduced.
Weekend elections
Many countries hold elections or referendums on weekends so that as many people as possible can cast their votes. On a Saturday you can vote for example in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia, Malta, Taiwan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, on a Sunday for example in Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland.
Time change on the weekend
In the entire CET zone, daylight saving time begins on the last Sunday in March (at 2 a.m. it moves forward to 3 a.m.) and ends on the last Sunday in October.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Meyer's Konversationslexikon from 1888/1889 does not yet list the word.
- ↑ Der Herrenfahrer , Heft 1, 1924, p. 60, Almanach Kunstverlag, Berlin
- ↑ Tagesanzeiger: The Saudi king postpones the weekend