Albemarle County should be embarrassed.
In their “General County News” email newsletter, an unidentified county spokesperson touted an upcoming closure of County Offices in observance of “Veteran’s Day.”
The U.S. Department of Defense, in their “5 Facts to Know About Veterans Day” web site, admonishes potential misspellers:
Veterans Day does NOT have an apostrophe.
A lot of people think it’s “Veteran’s Day” or “Veterans’ Day,” but they’re wrong. The holiday is not a day that “belongs” to one veteran or multiple veterans, which is what an apostrophe implies. It’s a day for honoring all veterans — so no apostrophe needed.
Presumably, all Albemarle County government communications are subject to pre-release review by the County Office of Equity and Inclusion, and perhaps this was an attempt to include the woefully ignorant or the culturally challenged of Albemarle County.
Or, maybe Albemarle County outsourced this communique to Charlottesville City, also know for botching holiday messaging.
If not, the only excuses are stupidity or laziness. Neither is an acceptable one.
Albemarle County should be embarrassed.
Rules for #Grammarphobes ?
https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/apostrophe.html
May I suggest “Veterans’ Day” is correct? (cf. link reference ie.: “the girls’ basketball team”)
Greg, You still don’t get the mail point. November 11th is not a day possessed by veterans, but one preserved by this nation to honor veterans. I’m guessing that either you didn’t serve, or didn’t serve well in our military services. I did, and I believe on the next Veterans Day, you should spend some time discovering great American service men like Sgt. Alvin C. York.
[…] is not the first time that Albemarle County has committed apostrophe abuse on this federal holiday, nor will it likely be […]