Happy Presidents Day or Happy Presidents' Day!

Happy Presidents' Day. Or is that Presidents Day? Or Presidents' Day?

Well....it depends on which expert you ask! Here is the run down:

1. It is NOT President's Day
      a. President's denotes one President...and this holiday honors Washington and Lincoln both...as well as all presidents
     b. President's Day says that it is the day that belongs to one President (singular)
     c. It follows the rule of writing the noun first (President) then if the word does NOT end in s, put apostrophe s (President's Day)

2. Some say it is Presidents' Day
     a. The Gregg Reference Manual (my favorite handbook) cites it as such
     b. This denotes many presidents all owning one day (or at least Lincoln and Washington)
     c. It follows the rule of writing the noun first (Presidents) then if the word ends in s, put an apostrophe on the outside of the s
     d. This is the correct way to show possession of one thing to more than one "owner"---or any noun that ends in an s (glass' smudges).


3. Some say it is Presidents Day
     a. The Associated Press Stylebook cites is as such
     b. This method does not denote possession, but rather uses the word President as an adjective (actually a "proper adjective" in that it is an adjective made from a proper noun--some of the time--we will not even get into whether it is (President) or isn't (president) in this post!)
   c. This is like saying that, that is a Grisham book (as opposed to a book that Grisham owns--Grisham's book), and it is certainly  not incorrect

P.S. Capitalize president when referring to a certain president or the holiday in question!

So there you have it! More subjectivity in our English language. Happy Presidents' Day! And Happy Presidents Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

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! :)

day 71: proper adjective part ii of ii

In the last post, we introduced proper adjectives and gave instruction on capitalizing them. A proper adjective is essentially a proper noun that has been put into adjective form. Words are different parts of speech based, oftentimes, on their suffixes. For example, loveliness (with the ness suffix) is a noun...but changing a suffix often changes a word's part of speech. Thus, lovely is an adjective; loveliness is a noun.

There are many other difficulties with proper adjectives and proper noun elements within common nouns.

For example, animal, flower, plant, and tree breeds are not capitalized (i.e. husky, mockingbird, rose, poison ivy, and sycamore tree). However, if a proper adjective or proper noun element is part of the name, that part of it is capitalized (but the rest of it remains lower case):

1. black-eyed Susan (Susan is a proper noun in other contexts, so it gets capitalized here as well)

2. Australian sheep dog

3. Alaskan husky

4. Jack Russell terrier

More on caps and proper nouns later!

day 70: the proper adjective part i of ii

As I said in an earlier post, capitalization can be extremely tricky. We have a tendency to think that the noun is the first part of speech we learn, so it's automatically simple to locate, which isn't true at all (it's true we learn it first--just not true that it is simple!). A noun can become many different parts of speech. (Take the word school--I'm going to school you (verb); The school children (adjective); She is so schoolish when she explains things (adjective); and Let's go to school now (finally, the noun). One cannot truly find the part of speech that a word is out of context. (Be careful of programs that teach parts of speech out of context if you are choosing grammar materials for your children.)

The same thing is true of capitalization--we learn it early yet it is far from simple. Cap this in this instance but not in this. Cap this when it is used as an address but not when it is used in a non-address scenario. And on and on.

Into that madness, enter the proper adjective--another capitalization nightmare, in many cases. Essentially, a proper adjective is a proper noun used as an adjective. The key to using this properly (with the proper capitalization) is knowing for sure that the word is usually a proper noun (without having context, in many cases!).

For example, the following words are capitalized when used as adjectives:

1. Spanish....Spanish speaker

2. Jesuit...Jesuit priests

3. Israeli....Israeli captives

4. French...French braid

More confusing to come tomorrow! Stay tuned to the English blog! (Yes, cap that proper adjective!)