In a nation where people work more than anyone else in the industrialized world, the two-day weekend helps keep us sane.
工業(yè)化世界，大家都爭相拼工作量，在這樣的國家里，雙休日有助我們保持理智。

No matter how exhausted you are at your nine-to-five, the promise of two full days set aside for socializing, sleeping in, and brunching in the afternoon always looms on the horizon.
無論你朝九晚五有多勞累，都保證能勻出兩整天時間參與社交、睡個懶覺、下午的時候早餐午餐并作一頓，而這正有愈演愈烈之勢。

People working 200 years ago weren't so lucky.The modern work week began to emerge during the industrial revolution—thanks in part to our hard-partying predecessors.
兩百多年前的人可沒那么幸運?，F(xiàn)代工作周在工業(yè)革命期間應(yīng)運而生，這多虧了我們夜夜笙歌的先祖?zhèn)儭?/div>

Reserving one holy day a week for rest and worship is an ancient tradition. Things took a turn in Britain during the 19th century when workers started using their one day off for pleasure. After cramming a week's worth of fun and debauchery into a single day, employees would often come into work the next morning hungover or end up taking the whole day off to recuperate.
一周留出一天瞻禮日休息休息、做做禮拜是一古老傳統(tǒng)。在19世紀的英國，事情發(fā)生了轉(zhuǎn)折，工人們開始花一天時間享樂，而把整個星期的玩樂和逍遙壓縮成一天后，員工們第二天早晨上班常常是宿醉未醒、或者要請上一天假恢復(fù)疲勞。

In the face of newly-formed labor unions and pressure from religious groups to keep Sundays holy, the five-day, 40-hour work week was signed into law with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
當時工會成立不久、宗教團體又施加壓力要求禮拜天作瞻禮，一周五天工作制、每周四十小時的工作量簽署成為法律，寫入了1938年頒布的《公平勞動標準法》中。

The practice of playing hooky on the first day of the work week, also known as "Saint Monday," became so common in the 19th century that many employers started making Saturdays a half-day as a compromise.
工作日第一天偷個懶，即人們所知的“圣周一”在19世紀非常普遍，不少雇主開始安排周六干半天活，作為折衷。

While the two-day weekend is a fairly recent phenomenon, today some people are working to extend it even longer.
盡管雙休日這一現(xiàn)象近年才有，如今仍有人想要延長雙休。

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