Week

A week is a period of seven days. It begins on Monday or Sunday, depending on who is asked, and ends at exactly the moment it begins again, which is why nobody has ever seen the gap.^[1]

Weeks are made of days, which are made of hours, which are made of weeks if you are waiting for a parcel.

Length

A standard week lasts 168 hours, or 10,080 minutes, or roughly four minutes if it is a holiday. The week was last formally measured in 1911 by the Bureau of Weekdays, which spent a week on it and reported that it had taken "about a week".^[2]

The start of the week

Scholars have long been divided into Mondayists, who hold that the week starts on Monday because that is when it feels like it starts, and Sundayists, who hold that it starts on Sunday because that is what the calendar on the kitchen wall says.

A compromise in 1977 proposed starting the week on Wednesday, so that both sides would be equally unhappy. It was adopted for one week, but the committee could not agree when that week had started, and so it is not certain it ever happened.^[3]

Multiples

• Two weeks: a fortnight, which is short for something that nobody can say quickly.
• Four weeks: roughly a month, except in February, which is exactly a month and seems pleased.
• Fifty-two weeks: a year, plus a day left over, which is kept in a drawer.

See also

• Monday – one possible start
• Sunday – the other possible start
• Number 7 – how many days there are, as agreed
• Day – one-seventh of a week

References

1. Bureau of Weekdays (1911). "The Week: A Measurement". Took a week.
2. Fortnight, F. (1977). Wednesday, Probably. Calendar Press.
3. Sevenday, S. (2003). "Where the Gap Is". Journal of Recurring Events 7: 7.