You may be tired of my "preaching" on this subject, and I promise I would let it go if I didn't see so many examples of this incorrect usage. The latest one appeared in a post on the Birmingham PowerCard newsletter for May 2008. One restaurant was reminding everyone about free dessert on Mother's Day.
Mother's before the word "Day" DOES get an apostrophe because it shows that May 11, 2008 is a day belonging to mothers.
However, the restaurant went on to say, "Free dessert for all mother's on Sunday, May 11th." NO! "All mothers" is simply a plural. You make a word plural by adding an "s," NOT an apostrophe "s."
The sentence should read as follows:
Free dessert for all mothers on Sunday, May 11.
By the way, those of you who have taken one of my workshops recently will also notice that I changed May 11th to May 11. We pronounce the "th" when we read a date, but it is not necessary to write the "th" (the "rd" on May 3 or the "st" on May 1).
I do hope all of you had a nice Mother's Day and were able to honor your mothers in some special way.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
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