This was our parting view of beach after we turned around and were on our way back home this morning. Those clouds rolled in and made it a little gloomy for a while, but it later turned into a gorgeous day, if a little cooler than typical.
But when I started to write this entry, I noticed that many news stories use a singular-possessive form of the holiday, “President’s Day”, rather than a plural form, “Presidents’ Day”.
I got to wonder which is correct.
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the official federal holiday established by statute (5 USC 6103) on February 15 is still “Washington’s Birthday”.
The agency’s web site notes:
his holiday is designated as “Washington’s Birthday” in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees. Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law.
I suppose that since “Washington’s Birthday” is singular, some jurisdictions may have made this officially “President’s Day”.
Hawaii is apparently not among them, however. According to the State Department of Human Resources, this is indeed “Presidents’ Day”.
But try a Google search for both spellings. I was certainly surprised by the results.
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I think it’s “Presidents Day,” in honor of ALL Presidents.
A billion years ago, when I was a kid, there were separate holidays where I grew up for Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays, which occur on February 22 and 12, respectively. Later, they were consolidated. So, I think it would be either “Presidents” (plural) or “Presidents'” (plural possessive).