I Stand Corrected

For as long as I can remember, I have been writing "Mothers' Day" and "Fathers' Day" because I just assumed everyone else was writing it wrong. In my defense, I wasn't paying close attention to how often other sources were placing the apostrophe after the single words of mother and father. I think if I had, I would not have been so prideful to think I was the only one who had it right out of millions of people.

Now I know better. Now I understand the reason (if you don't, it's because these holidays are intended to honor one mother and father at a time), and I'm okay with it. When the next Mother's Day and Father's Day show up on the calendar, I will conform. I do think the way I've been writing it is better, but I am not the one who writes the rules, I am just the one who tries to keep them.

Today I read an article online that used both "Mother's Day" and "Mothers Day" repeatedly, many of them in the same sentence together. I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, so I started to wonder if the writer purposely used both spellings in order to check both boxes in search tags (or whatever they are called) in order to be exposed to more readers. I looked that up to see if there was anything to it, but the article I read about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) didn't really make sense to me, so I don't know if that's a thing or not. At this point I've decided to give up on finding a reason and just say here in this public place that the proper way to write this US holiday is "Mother's Day."

In this same article, I also noticed one use of plural "mothers" (non-possessive) that was spelled "mother's." I'm not sure what causes people to add an apostrophe to plural words that are not possessive. Perhaps it happens when someone sees a sentence like, "I'm going to Grandma's," where the word being possessed (house, apartment, crib, etc.) is absent and then thinks this means we should always be throwing apostrophes before the letter S. Another cause could be the rare instances when an apostrophe is used in between a letter or number and the S, such as, "I didn't get any F's this semester." In this case, the F is not possessive, but the apostrophe is included to keep the letter separate.

This may be the cause of the many cards and gifts that have been given to me over the years "From The Lastname's." When we remember what the apostrophe symbol stands for (usually possession or one or more missing letters, but also to keep a letter or number separated from an S), it should help us to use it correctly.

Another thing worth mentioning here is that the placement of an apostrophe in a possessive noun will indicate whether or not the noun is singular or plural, which can make a big difference in what we mean. I mean, that is how this whole subject today got started, right? Should we be wishing each woman her own happy day or are we going to be lazy and just call "Happy Mothers' Day" into the sky and hope it lands on everyone who needs it?

Either way, it seems fitting to close with a valediction that one of my moms used to always say to me: "Have a happy day!"