The Apprentice apostrophe follow up post

Since last weeks Apprentice post which had ‘The one with the apostrophe’ in the title, a lot of traffic has come to the site looking for the answer to the question :

Should there be an apostrophe in Singles Day?

For those who don’t watch the Apprentice, the contestants in this reality show had to come up with a new occasion for a greeting card. One team came up with a day for single people, to be held on February 13th. They spent a lot of time on the show debating whether there should be an apostrophe in Singles when used in Singles Day.

There has been a lot of debate about this so I thought I would fire off a question to Erin McKean, a lexicographer whose TED lecture I found very interesting and entertaining. I subsequently subscribed to her blog, Dictionary Evangelist and it was via the contact page there that I got in touch with Erin.

Erin very kindly replied to this most random of emails and I think her word should settle the debate once and for all. Thanks Erin.

I am by no means an expert on the apostrophe, but I would say the most conventional way to think about the phrase Singles Day is to say that it is a parallel construction to something like “singles bar” — that is, a singles bar is a bar FOR singles, not a bar belonging to singles. “Singles” here is an attributive noun, not a possessive, thus — no apostrophe.

Now, if you are saying that no, it is a day BELONGING to singles (and can explain exactly why) then you could make a case for it being Singles’ (note placement) Day, like Mother’s Day. I would put the apostrophe AFTER the s, to indicate that it’s plural possessive — most people have only one mother but know plenty of single people.

Me, I prefer the first version (Singles Day, no apostrophe), if that counts for anything.