by Donna | Jun 19, 2011
Father’s Day presents some of the same challenges in writing as Mother’s Day. Like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day is written with a capital letter at the beginning of each word—and is written as a day for the singular father—not plural (fathers).
The “official” take on that goes like this (according to encyclopedias as well as the Chicago Manual of Style):
“Although the name of the event is usually understood as a plural possessive (i.e. ‘day belonging to fathers’), which would under normal English punctuation guidelines be spelled ‘Fathers’ Day,’ the most common spelling is ‘Father’s Day,’ as if it were a singular possessive (i.e. ‘day belonging to Father’). In the United States, Dodd used the ‘Fathers’ Day’ spelling on her original petition for the holiday, but the spelling ‘Father’s Day’ 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.”
So…Happy Father’s day to my father, my children’s father—and all fathers—regardless of whether it is written in a singular or plural possessive manner!
by Donna | Jun 13, 2011
Today is my thirtieth wedding anniversary! Lots of well-wishes have been coming our way on FaceBook and in person–and I am in quite the celebratory mood! 🙂
Of course, any written words spark interesting discussions about grammar and usage (in my head at least!). And with my anniversary today and my birthday tomorrow, these greetings warrant a little “language lady” attention!
Obviously, happy, birthday, and anniversary are not proper nouns in themselves. However, when you write these as greetings, they should be capitalized.
Thus, you would capitalize
Happy Birthday!
Happy 39th Birthday! (LOL!)
Happy Anniversary!
Happy 30th Anniversary!
However, you would not capitalize these same words within a sentence when describing a birthday or anniversary: I had a happy anniversary. I enjoyed by day and had a happy birthday.
So…Happy Anniversary and Happy Birthday to me! 🙂 and Happy Flag Day (tomorrow!) to you!
by Donna | May 23, 2011
May is halfway over! And so are May’s holidays! Here is a list of the holidays for May, spelled and punctuated correctly:
*Mother’s Day
1. Remember, you have one mother–the day belongs to her…
2. Show possession of mother by writing the singular word mother–doesn’t end in an s, so we put ‘s to show possession to it***
3. Cap M and cap D
*Memorial Day
1. No s or ‘s in this holiday
2. Cap M and cap D
***HINT: Do not worry about whether the word you want to show possession to is singular or plural.
by Donna | Apr 24, 2011
We will get back to our sit/set; rise/raise; lie/lay study next week. However, I am adding a new little feature to LL 365–the holidays for that month capitalized and punctated properly (well, relatively so!). Many holidays come and people wonder, “Do you cap Day in Thanksgiving Day?” “Do you show possession to Fool in April Fools Day?” etc. etc.
So…for April…a list of holidays punctuated and capitalized as correctly as I found! Note that different style guides (i.e. Associated Press vs. Modern Language Association, etc.) choose to punctuate and capitalize lesser known (National Kool-Aid Day!) or newer things (i.e. email ve e-mail) differently. In those cases, it is truly a style preference rather than a hard and fast rule. So….Happy April…I mean, happy April! 🙂 And definitely, Happy Easter!
All Fool’s Day/April Fools Day
Daylight Savings Time
Palm Sunday
Passover
Good Friday
Easter
Easter Monday
Earth Day
Administrative Professionals Day
Arbor Day
Cancer Control Month
Alcohol Awareness Month
by Donna | Mar 17, 2011
Capitalization can be so tricky! Capitalize Susan in black-eyed Susan but not geraniums. Capitalize Mom in Tomorrow Mom is taking us to town. But not mom in Tomorrow my mom is taking us to town. Capitalize President when referring to a certain president but not mayor unless his or her name is with the word….agghgh…..
And so it is with compass directions!
Here’s the run-down:
1. Capitalize a direction when it is referring to a specific location or place:
a.We are going out West for vacation.
b. My daughter is in South Carolina.
c. She is moving out East.
2. Do not capitalize a direction when it is referrig to a compass direction:
a. Turn west at the light.
b. We live on the south side of the road.
Tricky huh? I’ll give you a few more in days to come. Study hard! 🙂
