George, Abe, and the inverted comma
Not to be confused with the Oxford comma. (Presidents’ Day. Monday Maiku.)
As I typed that subtitle and the plural possessive (Presidents’) I felt my heart rate picking up a bit. I know there are two Presidents who share this special day, and I know how to use an apostrophe, so while typing Presidents’ came naturally for me, my mind starting flashing to all the wayward apostrophes I see in everyday life and how sad they make me—and despite my confidence in “Presidents’” I did give myself a twinge of doubt.
So let’s look at Presidents’ Day. It’s definitely not President’s. We celebrate two people and thus need a plural. According to the AP style guide, that’s all you need—Presidents. If you ask Chicago style, this day belongs to these Presidents, making it plural possessive—Presidents’. Sometimes punctuating a holiday can be challenging—as this article addresses.
A couple of weeks ago I weighed in on a related pet peeve, the wayward quotation marks—clearly misplaced speech marks really bother me. I like my punctuation in good order—and nothing is more jarring to me than an apostrophe where it doesn’t belong. Which leads me to wonder—is it better, as a rule of thumb, to advise people to drop the apostrophe altogether when in doubt? For whatever reason, a missing apostrophe doesn’t offend my grammatical sensibilities like a misplaced one does. Go figure.
It seems like everywhere I look there’s a possessive forced where there should be a regular old plural. Or a plural that has inadvertently become a possessive. And nowhere is it more evident than on a holiday card. If you have a stack that you haven’t been able to bring yourself to recycle, well, check it out—surely you were wished peace, joy, and love from The Smith’s or The Miller’s or The Doe’s. 🤦🏼♀️
Struggling with where the punctuation goes? Call yourself The Apostrophe Family. Or, list it out: John, Jane, Billie, Susie, and Scout Apostrophe. You’re not The Apostrophe’s. Or The Apostrophes’. Never have been. Never will be.
Makes me think back to an old VP of HR at a company I used to work for who never got this right: employee/employee’s/employees/employees’. I feel like that should be a requirement to be a VP of HR…right? At least it gave me something to chuckle about when I read his dastardly memos, back in the days when memos were a thing. Wanna know what was never a thing? Memo’s.
Anyhow, in this day and age of Google and spellcheck and autocorrect, I think not getting your apostrophes right is inexcusable. But this isn’t intended to be a rant about punctuation, grammar, word use/misuse/abuse…though it is inspired by it.
As I think about our founding fathers, plural v singular, possession vs freedom, I consider those concepts relative to the embarrassingly polarized and divided world we inhabit today…which brings me to my Monday haiku aka My Haiku aka Maiku:
One. Many. Mine. Ours. Pluralism. Possession. All together now.
I go back to something I think about a lot, and I’m sure I’ve mentioned here. Life is not a zero-sum game, so what’s “mine” is not necessarily better than what’s “ours.” A disproportionate focus on the mine-ness of things is dangerous. It reinforces unearned and uncalled for senses of privilege. It widens gaps that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
So I’m in favor of keeping it as Presidents’, plural possessive. Because we do celebrate two Presidents and it is a day that belongs to them. But also because it’s a day that belongs to all of us—and not because we’re entitled to a day off, but because we are beneficiaries of the freedoms our proverbial Founding Fathers gave us, and because we owe it to them and ourselves and to generations to come to take a long hard look at what we are saying and doing, in the alleged name of that so-called freedom.
I think many of you are off today and many more are be on vacation this week. Good on ya. Enjoy. Thanks for sharing this hard-to-punctuate holiday with me—I know, I should be paying you time and a half. 🤣🤣🤣
Until next Tuesday…love you too.