Grammar Moses: Happy Valentine's Day, dear valentines

Happy Valentine's Day.

I ordinarily save that sentence for my wife, Patt, and my mother, but it's worth broadcasting today.

If you're reading this before running off to Walgreens to take your chances on what's left of the picked-over cards and Whitman's samplers, make sure there is an apostrophe on the cover. If there isn't, put it back.

St. Valentine is the guy for whom the holiday was named. Because it's his day, it's a singular possessive and takes an apostrophe between the "e" and the "s."

The card and the person to whom you address it are both "valentines" with a lowercase "v."

I often complain about people overusing apostrophes, but in this case it's warranted.

Preventive

Increasingly, I hear "preventative" - rather than "preventive" - in radio and television commercials, and it probably occurs to me because pharmaceutical advertising seems to have eclipsed all other categories combined, including beer.

When expensive Super Bowl advertising time is given over to that annoying prancing small intestine, a drug that combats opioid-induced constipation and one that fights toenail fungus, how is possible to keep your chicken wings from coming back up?

But I digress.

"Preventive" and "preventative" are both words and mean the same thing. According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, both have existed for three centuries, though "preventive" is more commonly used. That's likely because the added syllable hangs there as useless as an appendix.

"Authoritative" is built on the same chassis as "preventative," which further legitimizes it.

But for as long as both words have existed, wordsmiths have decried the four-syllable version.

My advice: Go with whatever feels right.

Fee or fine?

We ran a story this week about one of our villages considering higher fees for parents who allow underage drinking in their homes.

I understand the rationale of the village board, but we used the wrong word.

A "fee" is something you pay in exchange for a service rendered. A "fine," in this usage, is what you pay as a penalty for wrongdoing.

Clearly, the latter applies.

Animal corner

Reader Will Pastor of Long Grove has two pet peeves, both involving wildlife. More specifically, what we call two species.

"The first is when those common, large black and white geese are called 'Canadian Geese.' They are actually called 'Canada geese,'" he wrote. The other is "calling a walleye a 'walleye pike.' I see it all the time on restaurant menus, except maybe up north where they know better. A walleye is a member of the perch family. It's not a pike."

Will is correct on both counts. I know for a fact that the birds are Canada geese.

But I did more zoological research than I normally would in a year to satisfy myself that Will was right about "walleye," because I often see "walleye pike" on menus, too.

According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the walleye (Sander vitreus) is the largest member of the perch family.

One of its primary predators, in fact, is the northern pike.

The Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission notes: "One of the many nicknames for walleye is 'yellow pike.' Walleye have also been called been called 'Susquehanna salmon' and even 'pickerel.' All these nicknames put it in the wrong fish family - walleye are neither a pike cousin nor a salmon. It's the biggest, toothiest member of the perch family."

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is assistant 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.