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'Daylight Savings' Is Grammatically Incorrect (qz.com)

A reader shares a report: We talk about time like it's money, and that may explain why we say "Daylight Savings Time," capitalizing the concept to emphasize its awesomeness. After all, who wouldn't want to be able to save hours like cash? The phrase "Daylight Savings Time," though commonly used in Australia, Canada, and the US, is technically incorrect. Time and Date, a website devoted to all things chronological, posits that the plural "savings" became popular because it's used in everyday contexts, like "savings account." The grammatically correct usage is "daylight saving time." The expression is singular and not capitalized, according to the US Government Publishing Office style guide. The GPO provides the guidance, "d.s.t., daylight saving (no 's') time."

7 of 312 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Get rid of it. by acoustix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think we should be on DST year round. I want my sunlight at the end of the work day instead of the beginning.

    --
    "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
  2. Re:"News" that "Matters" by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It looks like the Aspie pedants have finally taken over the asylum. Tune in next week when it is patiently explained to us how we don't "dial" a phone number any more.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. Of all the things wrong with .... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Of all the things that are wrong with daylight saving time, the grammar mistake is the least important one.

    There is no reason to continue this anachronism any more.

    Steven Pinker last book The better angels of our nature talks about how much the cost of artificial light has fallen in the last three hundred years.

    It is high time we get rid of it.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. What's even more useful... by argStyopa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...are the people who take the time to point this out.

    They believe that they're just being helpful, pointing out a common grammatical mistake of usage.

    What they're really doing is showing the rest of us that they're annoying as fuck so we can avoid them generally.

    Grammar Nazis are like the intellectual equivalent of skunk smell, warning us all away from something we REALLY don't want to experience any more closely.

    It's socially a very useful thing. Thank you, Grammar Nazis.

    --
    -Styopa
  5. Just for the sake of argument by Solandri · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Totally agreed grammar nazi posts don't deserve to be on the front page.

    But isn't it called a "savings account" (plural) because you deposit money you've saved on multiple occasions into it? Likewise, shouldn't it be "daylight savings" because you save daylight on multiple days? i.e. If we only changed the clocks for one day, then it would be "daylight saving time." But since we change the clocks for multiple days, doesn't that make "daylight savings time" correct?

  6. Old saying by cwsumner · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To use an old Sioux saying:

    "Daylight saving time is like cutting a foot off of your blanket and sewing it on to the other end, and thinking you have made it longer!"

  7. Nobody likes being called childish, however... by RJFerret · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When I was a child, I was taught there were right and wrong ways of saying things, so I could communicate with others. That was decades ago.

    Then I learned that language evolves, and what is spoken and permissible nowadays are totally different words and formats than from when I was a child--I've adapted so I can communicate with others.

    That's what grown adults do, relate to those around them and their community, not try to enforce specific aberrations of speech or stay stuck in the past. If you can shift your clock forward in the Spring, you can stop calling it Daylight Saving Time and refer to it as everyone else does, Daylight Savings Time, which matches nicely with other "savings"; and fits with the plural aspect of it, as there are lots of different Daylight Savings times in various places with different starts and endings.