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Grammar Moses: On Mothers' Day, the power of an apostrophe

It's Mother's Day. Not Mothers Day or Mothers' Day, but plain old singular possessive Mother's Day.

Why? Because when the rule was created it was generally thought that one could have only one mother.

But now, many more people have two.

Just as we grapple with whether to assign a gender-neutral pronoun for members of the LGBTQ community who aren't comfortable with "he" or "she," I suspect we also will move toward Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day to reflect the idea that some of us might honor more than one mom or dad on their special day.

Who knew a simple apostrophe could signify acceptance?

Language evolves, just as we do.

Conjugate!

It's apparent to me that not enough of us conjugated enough before we graduated.

• "Cast" is both present and past tense, as are words in which "-cast" is a suffix.

So, it's "forecast," not "forecasted." And "broadcast," not broadcasted.

I've even heard a broadcaster or two say "broadcasted." Tsk. You know who you are.

• Conversely, some people assume that "lead" is both present and past tense.

They're wrong.

"Lead," with a long "e," is the present tense. "Led" is the past tense.

Why is this so tricky? Because "led" - the past tense - and "lead" - the element - are homophones, meaning they sound alike.

Don't get me started on "Led Zeppelin," which includes a deliberate misspelling of "lead" to dissuade people from mispronouncing the element "lead" with a long "e."

Doing swimmingly

Sometimes it's the present tense that people don't understand.

For instance, if you die in the water, you "drown." You don't "drowned."

Too often I hear "drowned" being used as present tense and "drownded" used as past tense. The latter does not exist.

I suspect some equate it with "ground" and "grounded."

• The present tense is "to dive." But what's the past tense? Traditionally, it's "dived," but in recent centuries "dove" - with a long "o" - has evolved into the standard North American usage. Either way, you're OK.

• I swim, I swam, I have swum. Honest.

Coda

Back to mothers for a moment. I was born on Mother's Day 54 years ago, so Mom and I always celebrated together.

I lost her two months ago, and many of you, who clearly read the paper from front to back, saw her obituary, put two and two together and wrote to express your condolences. Your notes touched me deeply. Thank you.

I don't think I saw a misspelling in the bunch.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.

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