{"id":5974,"date":"2022-04-29T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=5974"},"modified":"2022-04-25T09:21:59","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T14:21:59","slug":"mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/apostrophes\/mothers-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Mother\u2019s Day, Mothers\u2019 Day,<\/em> or Mothers Day<\/em>?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the second Sunday of May approaches, we are reminded again of the importance of motherhood. The holiday dedicated to mothers was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and later made an official U.S. holiday in 1914.<\/p>\n

Its origin can be traced to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but the foundation of the modern holiday stems from the early Christian festival called \u201cMothering Sunday.\u201d Once a tradition in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe, the celebration took place on the fourth Sunday in Lent as a time when the faithful would return to their \u201cmother church\u201d near home for a special service.<\/p>\n

Over time the Mothering Sunday tradition became the holiday we now know, which leads to a prominent question for some. How do we properly write the holiday in American English: Is it Mother\u2019s Day<\/em>, Mothers\u2019 Day<\/em>, or Mothers Day<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Do We Use an Apostrophe in Mother\u2019s Day<\/em>?<\/h2>\n

The most direct answer is yes. The<\/em> Chicago Manual of Style<\/em> and The<\/em> Associated Press Stylebook<\/em> list the following holidays as singular possessives: Mother\u2019s Day<\/em>, Father\u2019s Day<\/em>, New Year\u2019s Eve<\/em>, New Year\u2019s Day<\/em>, St. Patrick\u2019s Day<\/em>.<\/p>\n

CMOS uses the plural possessive for Presidents\u2019 Day<\/em>, while AP writes Presidents Day<\/em>. Both agree on no apostrophe in Veterans Day<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Some people may not agree with the singular possessive spelling of Mother\u2019s Day<\/em> because it implies one mother. There are several scenarios in which a person can have two mothers: a mother and stepmother, a biological mother and adopted mother, or a home with two mothers raising a child. The same can be true of two fathers.<\/p>\n

Perhaps if you think of the word Mothers<\/em> as an adjective describing the word Day<\/em>, then you would not use an apostrophe. It would be a day of or for mothers rather than one they possess. (Our post Apostrophes and False Possessives<\/a> discusses how English nouns often become adjectives.) If we use the plural possessive Mothers\u2019 Day<\/em>, we would imply a day belonging to all mothers. Neither Mothers <\/em>nor Mothers\u2019 <\/em>is endorsed by CMOS or AP.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible the style guides will someday drop the apostrophe. Until then, your spell-check program may identify Mothers Day<\/em> or Mothers\u2019 Day<\/em> as incorrect.<\/p>\n

Must Mother\u2019s Day<\/em> Be Capitalized?<\/h2>\n

Another question may concern whether Mother\u2019s Day<\/em> should always be capitalized. The answer is that when we are referring to the holiday, we do capitalize it as a proper noun phrase.<\/p>\n

If on the other hand we are making a general reference to a nonspecific day associated with a mother, we most often will not capitalize the phrase.<\/p>\n

Proper noun phrase:<\/strong> Our family follows a tradition of spending Mother\u2019s Day <\/u>first at the zoo and then at Mom\u2019s favorite restaurant.<\/em><\/p>\n

General reference:<\/strong> Her mother\u2019s day<\/u> started out on a happy note with a surprise visit from her best friend.<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/h3>\n

Giving Special Days Their Grammatical Due<\/a>
\nIs It Father\u2019s Day or Fathers Day?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the second Sunday of May approaches, we are reminded again of the importance of motherhood. The holiday dedicated to mothers was created by Anna Jarvis in 1908 and later made an official U.S. holiday in 1914. Its origin can be traced to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but the foundation of the modern holiday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,21,34,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostrophes","category-capitalization","category-possessives","category-singular-vs-plural"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5986,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5974\/revisions\/5986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}