Possessives

“… in the care of cold water.”

Outsider's Perspective, Possessives

I saw this at the end of a sentence on a Tide laundry-detergent bottle.

Problem:
This phrase makes no sense.

Explanation:
“Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean in the care of cold water.” is the full sentence at the top of the label on the back of a “2X Ultra Tide for Coldwater” bottle that I have in my laundry room.

Huh?

“The care of cold water” is the same as “cold water’s care”, just as “the daughter of Jim” is the same as “Jim’s daughter”.

Substituting, we get “Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean in cold water’s care.”

Huh (again)?

It seems that the writing of this label was outsourced to a non-native speaker of English who might have written the label in his language first and then translated it literally to English.

Squinting my eyes while reading the label again and wondering what the writer wanted to say, I got “Ultra Tide Coldwater is specially designed to deeply clean with cold water.”

Solution:
“… with cold water.”

“REPORT DISCOURTEOUS DRIVER’S TO”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Possessives

I saw this on the back of a delivery van two days ago.

Problem:
The sign writer converted a singular noun into a possessive instead of into a plural noun.

Explanation:
Book authors such as Lynne Truss are bang on when they say that sign writers have a propensity to put apostrophes where they do not belong.

The sign writer for the delivery van is guilty of this offense.

The sign writer either should have left the noun in singular form (“DRIVER”) or should have used the plural form (“DRIVERS”).

The writer probably wanted to be somewhat generic — and not pick on the driver of the van to which the sign is attached — and use the plural form of “DRIVER”.

One humorous aside: There was no telephone number to call for reporting a lack of courtesy!

Solution:
“REPORT DISCOURTEOUS DRIVERS TO”

“Valentimes Day” or “Valentime’s Day”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Mispronunciations, Possessives

I often hear this, although I certainly can’t hear the possessive apostrophe.

Problem:
These are mispronunciations of a popular February holiday, and one is missing the required possessive apostrophe.

Explanation:
The person whose day is celebrated on February 14 is St. Valentine.

So the proper name of the holiday is “St. Valentine’s Day” or more simply “Valentine’s Day” — not “Valentimes Day” or “Valentime’s Day” or even “Valentines Day”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following phrases (with the quotation marks) and got the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “Valentimes Day” — 18,800 matches
  • “Valentime’s Day” — 7,570 matches
  • “Valentines Day” — 1,560,000 matches
  • “Valentine’s Day” — 10,800,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the phrase correctly by a ratio of 6.8:1, which is not good!

I believe that the use of “Valentimes” or “Valentime’s” instead of “Valentine’s” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It is simpler to pronounce the “m” sound in “Valentimes” or “Valentime’s” than to pronounce the “n” sound in “Valentines” or “Valentine’s”.

I believe that the omission of the possessive apostrophe in the otherwise-correct “Valentines Day” is also consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It is simpler to omit the apostrophe than to include it, and this holiday is only one of many examples in which writers omit required possessive apostrophes.

Solution:
“Valentine’s Day”