A Day of or for Mothers?

Sunday  terribly early in the morning  Mystie

Mother’s Day?
–No, there is more than one mother.

Mothers’ Day?
–There are more than one mother, but does the day belong to them?

Mothers Day?
–Doesn’t there always have to be an apostrophe when there is an s at the end of a word?

grin.

Here’s a good article on attributive nouns, for those who are interested — come on, guys, you are, aren’t you? At least I know Kirsti is out there, and sometimes Jessica. :)

I found this article linked from a lady who briefly defended her use of ‘Mothers Day.’ Her argument was that ‘Mothers’ is an adjective used to describe ‘Day,’ as in a day about mothers, not a day belonging to mothers. The article seems to say, look up the conventional usage in the dictionary and use that, whatever it is, and then proves that conventional usage is inconsistent.

Personally, I prefer a consistent usage that is grammatically defensible above one that is merely conventional. Yes, yes, language is all convention and thus convention dictates correctness. Blah. It shouldn’t be that way. Some days I actually think the French might have one thing right.

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