DEAR RICHARD: Shouldn’t the apostrophe in Mothers Day go after the s, as in Mothers’ Day, not before the s, as in Mother’s Day? Isn’t tomorrow a day for ALL mothers? – Michael-Leonard Creditor, Bay Park In the United States, Mother’s Day st…
DEAR RICHARD: Shouldn’t the apostrophe in Mothers Day go after the s, as in Mothers’ Day, not before the s, as in Mother’s Day? Isn’t tomorrow a day for ALL mothers?
– Michael-Leonard Creditor, Bay Park In the United States, Mother’s Day started in 1908, when Anna Jarvis, a Grafton, W.V. , homemaker, organized a day to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community, a cause she believed would be best advocated by mothers. She called it Mother’s Work Day and held a memorial to honor her own mother.
In 1912, she trademarked the phrases“second Sunday in May” and “Mother’s Day’” Jarvis specifically insisted that Mother’s should “be a singular possessive, for each family to honor its mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers of the world. ” She also invented Father’s Day. On May 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day a national holiday to be celebrated each year on the second Sunday of May.
PRECIOUS READERS: Today marks the 14 th anniversary of my “Lederer on Language” column in the Union Tribune. In a couple of weeks my celestial odometer will flip over to 88.
Now that I am full of years and white of hair and the evening sun sets in the sky, I am taking this opportunity to share a life lesson about how I was gifted with the golden opportunity to create my 571 installments of this column, all of which you can read on my website, verbivore.com. Back in 2011, I published a book titled The Gift of Age, an optimistic exploration of becoming chronologically endowed.
Each year on a Saturday, the Union-Tribune had beensponsoring a Successful Aging Expo at the Town and Country Resort, and I believed that my topic would resonate with those attending the event. So I called the chairman of the Expo and asked if I could be a speaker at Successful Aging. He informed me that only sponsors were given the opportunity to be speakers, in otherwords, pay to play. So that was that.
But the next year, the U-T added a Sunday to their Successful Aging event, so I got back on the horn and asked if I could be a Sunday speaker and display my books in the exhibit hallthat day. The chair said yes. Oh, frabjous day! Callooh!
Callay! I chortled in my joy.
Then I asked him a question, the answer to which changed my life: In addition to being at my book table on Sunday, could I also display my books on Saturday? Again he respondedpositively. So on Saturday, I had my books set up at 9 am. Two hours later, a slim fellow strolled over to my book table from the U-T exbibit area and asked me, “Are you Richard Lederer?
”“I know who you are, Jeff. ” You’re the publisher of the Union-Tribune, which my wife and have subscribed to since we touched down in San Digo in 1997. ”I fixed him with a steely gaze, “Because you haven’t asked me. ” Two weeks later, Jeff Light and I had lunch at the Butcher Shop Steakhouse in Kearny Mesa, and he hired me to write this language column.
I asked one last question: “Jeff, I didn’t see you at the Expo on Sunday. If I hadn’t been at my book table on Saturday, would I have landed this job? ” Jeff said, “No, but when I saw you on Saturday and, knowing your work on ‘A Way with Words’ on KPBS, the idea popped into my head that you should be the U-T language columnist.
” “Lederer on Language” has been a major driver of my lifelong mission of teachership. Because of this column, I’ve built a fandom, and I meet the best people at their best. Writing thiscolumn has driven me to write 65 books. I write.
Therefore I am. Lucky. Absolutely — but luck is the convergence of hard work and opportunity. The harder you work the luckier you get.
That’s my life lesson: Knock and it shall be opened unto you. You lose all the points in life that you don’t play. Take the bull by the horns. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Carpediem. Seize the day!
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