Whose Day? Well, at Least It's Not Who's
On Monday, Radio Shack offered special prices for Presidents’ Day. Office Depot had discounts, too, in honor of President’s Day. Not to be left out, Macy’s advertised sales of its own to celebrate Presidents Day.
Never mind that the federal holiday observed on Monday didn’t go by any of those names — not officially, anyway. It was Washington’s Birthday, observed on the third Monday of February, as dictated by a 1968 law. But that statement of fact is a lost cause by now. So let us turn to a more cosmic matter:
Is it not possible, at long last, to settle on a broadly accepted use, or nonuse, of the apostrophe to describe the day? It is, after all, a major holiday, even if it is devoted more to shopping than to contemplating the relative merits of the 43 men who have held the country’s highest public office.
That apostrophe floats more than the dollar does in international currency markets. In the process, logic is sometimes held hostage....
Read entire article at NYT
Never mind that the federal holiday observed on Monday didn’t go by any of those names — not officially, anyway. It was Washington’s Birthday, observed on the third Monday of February, as dictated by a 1968 law. But that statement of fact is a lost cause by now. So let us turn to a more cosmic matter:
Is it not possible, at long last, to settle on a broadly accepted use, or nonuse, of the apostrophe to describe the day? It is, after all, a major holiday, even if it is devoted more to shopping than to contemplating the relative merits of the 43 men who have held the country’s highest public office.
That apostrophe floats more than the dollar does in international currency markets. In the process, logic is sometimes held hostage....