[originaltext] A recent report has shown that here in the United States, we’

A recent report has shown that here in the United States, we’ve experienced the revolution concerning our attitudes towards the work week and weekend. Although some calendars still mark the beginning of the week "Sunday", more and more of us are coming to regard Monday as the first day of the week with Saturday and Sunday comprising the two-day periods thought of as the weekend. In fact, the word "weekend" didn’t even exist in English until about the middle of the last century. In England at that time, Saturday afternoons had just been added to Sundays and holidays as a time for workers to have off from their jobs. This innovation became common in the United States in the 1920s. But as the work weak shortened during the Great Depression of 1930s, the weekend expanded to 2 full days, Saturday and Sunday. Some people thought this trend would continue due to increasing automation and the work week might decrease to 4 days or even fewer. But so far, this hasn’t happened. The work week seems to have stabilized at 40 hours made up of 5 eight-hour days. After this commercial, I’ll be back to talk about the idea of adding Monday to the weekend.