A recent post on About.com reveals the widespread confusion that exists in the use of apostrophes. In the article, the author changed the well known phrase “daylight savings time” to daylight saving time.” As I pointed out to him, neither are correct.
I can remember seeing the phrase spelled differently as a kid when the second word was possessive; that is, “Saving’s.” In this form, the word means something entirely different than it does without it.
With it, “Time” is owned by the phrase Daylight Saving’s, and that gives us its intended meaning which is that daylight is saved for another time, one hour later than it was originally “scheduled.”
When the phrase is changed to “Daylight Saving Time,” as suggested by the author, the meaning also changes. Now it means that the daylight saves time, which of course is not what happens at all. It’s not the daylight that saves time; rather, it’s the time (of day) that saves the daylight. If the time remained the same, the light would remain in the morning; but by pushing our clocks either forward (March) or back (October/November), the additional daylight is experienced in the evening.
For some, my remarks will seem pedantic. But, we really owe it to ourselves and our children to learn to write correctly, even though for many that is no longer cool.
