by Donna | Feb 14, 2013
Happy Valentine’s Day! Some tips for punctuation and capitalization of this loving holiday:
1. In a greeting (such as a card), cap all three words: Happy Valentine’s Day.
2. Show possession to the singular proper noun Valentine--the day belongs to him: Valentine’s Day.
3. Cap Day in the holiday because it is part of the holiday’s name (as opposed to day in Christmas day in which Christmas is the name of the holiday, not day): Valentine’s Day.
4. You can just call it Valentine when appropriate, but remember that Valentine is a singular proper noun, so in other contexts, do not plural it before showing possession:
a. I’m making Valentine’s cupcakes.
b. I got a Valentine card.
5. If you are calling cards Valentines, keep the following in mind:
a. Still cap it–any time a proper noun element is used, it retains its capitalization: I got a Valentine this morning. (In this case, it is sometimes called a proper adjective–an adjective that is a proper noun in its non-descriptive states.)
b. Just plural it with an s (not an apostrophe s): I got some Valentines at school today.
Most of all, enjoy your Valentine’s Day! đ
by Donna | Jun 19, 2011
Fatherâs Day presents some of the same challenges in writing as Motherâs Day. Like Motherâs Day, Fatherâs Day is written with a capital letter at the beginning of each wordâand is written as a day for the singular fatherânot plural (fathers).
The âofficialâ take on that goes like this (according to encyclopedias as well as the Chicago Manual of Style):
âAlthough the name of the event is usually understood as a plural possessive (i.e. âday belonging to fathersâ), which would under normal English punctuation guidelines be spelled âFathers’ Day,â the most common spelling is âFather’s Day,â as if it were a singular possessive (i.e. âday belonging to Fatherâ). In the United States, Dodd used the âFathers’ Dayâ spelling on her original petition for the holiday, but the spelling âFather’s Dayâ was already used in 1913 when a bill was introduced to the U.S. Congress as the first attempt to establish the holiday, and it was still spelled the same way when its creator was commended in 2008 by the United States Congress.â
SoâŚHappy Fatherâs day to my father, my childrenâs fatherâand all fathersâregardless of whether it is written in a singular or plural possessive manner!
by Donna | Mar 15, 2011
This tricky plural rule is probably misused more than it is used correctly!
The key to making hyphenated words plural is to pluralize the first part–the noun part.
Thus, the following words are pluraled as listed:
1. Brother-in-law—brothers-in-law
2. Sister-in-law—sisters-in-law
3. Mother-in-law—mothers-in-law
4. Father-in-law—fathers-in-law
You are making the brother, sister, mother, and father plural–not the law part!
Exceptions are when an adjective comes first:
1. Great-grandma—great grandmas (you are not making great plural)
2. Great-nephew—great nephews
