JUNE CASAGRANDE
Dear June,
In the next two months we'll be celebrating two holidays: Mothers'
Day and Fathers' Day. You'll notice I place the apostrophe after the
words mothers and fathers. That's because I feel the holidays in
question are for all mothers and all fathers. But almost everyone I
know uses "Mother's Day" and "Father's Day" as if the day were for
only one mother or father.
What's the correct punctuation?
Kris
Hi, Kris. Good question.
There's some official cheating going on right now in the world of
copy-editing that goes like this: "Teachers union" is correct with no
apostrophe. Why? Because the newspapers writing it this way claim to
be using "teachers" not as a possessive but as an adjective. I
thought that Mothers Day and Fathers Day were the same, but let me
look them up right now:
Hmmm. Not in "Garner's Modern American Usage." Moving on ...
Hmmm. Not in the Chicago Manual of Style. Moving on ...
Hmmm. Not in "Lapsing Into a Comma," (a stylebook by a Washington
Post business copy desk chief). Moving on ...
Bigger hmmm. It is in the AP Stylebook: "Mother's Day," singular
possessive. I'd like to hear the rationale behind that. I guess you
could argue that it's the day one honors one's mother -- you know,
"Today is Mom's day," but personalizing it like that seems to make
less sense than the approach you advocate.
It also appears in Webster's New World College Dictionary (where
AP gets many of its cues, by the way). Ditto: "Mother's Day."
And, one more, it appears in the American Heritage Dictionary as,
yup, "Mother's Day."
Who was this lone mom, and why was she so much more notable than
everybody else's?
If you're looking for someone to tell you that your way is more
logical, sign me up. Unfortunately for us, though, we're wrong.
That's what we get for listening to a bunch of mothers.
Dear June,
For me, the very most problematic usage, seen very often, is
poured/pored.
Did he pore over the story? Does she pour her enthusiasm into the
project?
Are they pouring over the issues presented? ... and on and on,
endlessly. I think pour should be used in most cases. I often believe
the writer doesn't even know that the other spelling exists!
The dictionary is some help, but journalists and editors need to
be aware of the misuse.
I'll share with you a recent discovery of mine -- one I should
have made much sooner. There exist books called "usage" guides and
"usage dictionaries." "Fowler's Modern American Usage," "Garner's
