Poring over our mothers and fathers

JUNE CASAGRANDE

Dear June,

In the next two months we’ll be celebrating two holidays: Mothers’

Day and Fathers’ Day. You’ll notice I place the apostrophe after the

words Mothers and Fathers. That’s because I feel the holidays in

question are for all Mothers and all Fathers. But almost everyone I

know uses “Mother’s Day” and “Father’s Day” as if the day were for

only one Mother or Father.

What’s the correct punctuation?

Kris

Hi, Kris. Good question.

There’s some official cheating going on right now in the world of

copy editing that goes like this: “Teachers union” is correct with no

apostrophe. Why? Because the newspapers writing it this way claim to

be using “teachers” not as a possessive but as an adjective. I

thought that Mothers Day and Fathers Day were the same, but let me

look them up right now:

Hmmm. Not in “Garner’s Modern American Usage.” Moving on ...

Hmmm. Not in the “Chicago Manual of Style.” Moving on ...

Hmmm. Not in “Lapsing Into a Comma,” (a style book by a Washington

Post business copy desk chief). Moving on ...

Bigger hmmm. It is in the AP Stylebook: “Mother’s Day,” singular

possessive. I’d like to hear the rationale behind that. I guess you

could argue that it’s the day one honors one’s mother -- you know,

“Today is Mom’s day,” but personalizing it like that seems to make

less sense than the approach you advocate.

It also appears in Webster’s New World College Dictionary (which

is where AP gets many of its cues, by the way). Ditto: “Mother’s

Day.”

And, one more, it appears in the American Heritage Dictionary as,

yup, “Mother’s Day.”

Who was this lone mom and why was she so much more notable than

everybody else’s?

If you’re looking for someone to tell you that your way is more

logical, sign me up. Unfortunately for us, though, we’re wrong.

That’s what we get for listening to a bunch of mothers.

*

Dear June,

For me, the very most problematic usage, seen very often, is

poured/pored.

Did he pore over the story? Does she pour her enthusiasm into the

project?

Are they pouring over the issues presented? ... and on and on,

endlessly. I think pour should be used in most cases. I often believe

the writer doesn’t even know that the other spelling exists!

Dictionary is some help, but journalists and editors need to be

aware of the misuse.

I’ll share with you a recent discovery of mine -- one I should

have made much sooner. There exist books called “usage” guides and

“usage dictionaries.” “Fowler’s Modern American Usage,” “Garner’s

Modern American Usage,” “Webster’s Modern American Usage” and on and

on.

These books are amazing. Unlike grammar books laid out in the form

of someone else’s lesson plan, these are the handy-dandiest language

books in the world because they’re written for our convenience -- not

the writer’s.

Say, for example, you want to know about when to use “pore” versus

“pour.” Just look under “p.”

“pore” -- (to read intently) is sometimes misspelled “pour” (to

make [a liquid] flow downward.... This probably appears primarily

because the verb ‘pore’ appears less often in print.”

How’s that for a book that’s speaking your language? I have

“Garner’s,” by the way, so I can’t testify to the quality of the

others. But what I can testify to is that having one of these things

on your desk can solidly separate you from the masses who believe

that learning the language is a lost cause.

“Pore” is just a few entries after “Pontius Pilate,” a primer on

the difference between “populace” and “population,” and a very

thorough discussion of possessives.

Want to know how to spell “vale of tears”? Look under “v”. Want to

know the current rules on split infinitives? Look under “s”. Confused

about the difference between “load” and “lode”? Turn to “l”. Grammar

concepts, commonly confused words, tricky spellings, style issues,

figures of speech, notable names -- they’re all in there,

alphabetized.

Neat, huh? In the short time since I’ve discovered these books,

I’ve come to believe that they can make the differ- ence between

being language-savvy and living in fear that you’re speaking and

writing wrong -- a well-kept secret now spattered all over the pages

of your little community newspaper.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE is a freelance writer. She can be reached at

[email protected].