Wednesday January 2, 2008

Why is it not ‘New Year Eve’?

Your questions answered By FADZILAH AMIN

WHY New Year’s Eve and not New Year Eve, when it is Christmas Eve and not Christmas’s Eve? There must be other comparative examples.

– I. Ho

I really have no idea why! The answer must lie in traditional usage. Indeed there are other examples of the use of the apostrophe ‘s’ after some words, but not after other seemingly similar words. Here are some of them:

We can say “a summer’s day” as well as “a summer day” and we can say “a winter’s day” as well as “a winter day”, but we can’t say “a spring’s day” or “an autumn’s day” – always “a spring day” or “an autumn day.

But, we always say “Midsummer Day” without the apostrophe ‘s’. “Day”, in all the above cases, can be substituted by eve, morning, afternoon, evening and night.

As for other festival days, religious or secular, it is Easter Day (or Easter Sunday), May Day, but St Patrick’s Day, St Valentine’s Day, and April Fool’s Day.

The general rule about using apostrophe ‘s’ to indicate possession is that we use it only for animate beings and phrases closely associated with animate beings like “Malaysia’s inhabitants” but not “Malaysia’s roads”. So I can understand the reason for “St Patrick’s Day” and “St Valentine’s Day”: but how can “summer” and “winter” be considered animate when “spring” and “autumn” are not?

We may be dealing with some of the many exceptions to the rule!

OK to use ‘through’?

CAN one say he or she learns something through television?

For instance, we can gain knowledge through watching television or other mass media. Is the use of “through” in these cases correct?

– Brian Clarkson

One of the meanings of “through” as a preposition is “by means of” and in this sense, we can say that we can learn something “through (watching) television” or other mass media. Here are some relevant examples from the Internet:

“... the Open University, an existing UK university where students learn through television and radio broadcasts ...”

http://www.mcelt.com/downloads/achieve_ielts/Achieve%20IELTS%20TB.pdf

“... but there is an awful lot culturally that you can learn through television.”

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmeuleg/uc790/uc79002.htm

“There seems to be a desire for people to learn through television.”

http://www.newstatesman.com/200605080053

“... children can develop different types of skills through watching television.”

http://www.ivillage.co.uk/parenting/presch/parbehav/articles/0,,186583_711217,00.html

http://www.mcelt.com/downloads/achieve_ielts/Achieve_IELTS_TB.pdf