Valentine’s Day – Capitalization, Punctuation & Spelling

Posted by on Feb 11, 2014 2 Comments

Love is in the air! Valentine’s Day will be celebrated in many countries this Friday, February 14. Some schools participate in Valentine’s Day activities such as doing lessons about love/dating/marriage, wearing pink or red, or giving out valentine cards, roses, or chocolate. If you will be discussing Valentine’s Day with your young learners this week, make it educational and teach them the capitalization, punctuation, and spelling rules of this popular holiday!

Capitalization

In English, holidays always use capital letters for the holiday name and the word “Day”.

  • I’m looking forward to Valentine’s Day.

When it’s clear we’re referring to the holiday, we can drop the word “Day” if we want.

  • I got a ring for Valentine’s Day.
  • I got a ring for Valentine’s.

But be careful! We don’t use capital letters when referring to a card, gift, or person.

  • He gave me a valentine card yesterday.
  • I bought a valentine present for my girlfriend.
  • You will always be my valentine.

Punctuation

Always use “apostrophe s” when writing the holiday.

  • It’s Valentine’s Day on Friday. (correct)
  • Happy Valentine’s Day! (correct)
  • Happy Valentines Day! (incorrect)

Do not use an apostrophe when referring to a plural form such as cards.

  • I got 12 valentines from my classmates. (correct)
  • I got 12 valentine cards from my classmates. (correct)
  • I got 12 valentines cards from my classmates. (incorrect)
  • I got 12 valentine’s from my classmates. (incorrect)
  • 1 got 12 valentine’s cards from my classmates. (incorrect)

Spelling

Students sometimes misspell this holiday as “Valetine’s Day” or “Valentime’s Day”. Tell them to remember to use two n’s: Valentine’s Day.

Try our Valentine’s Day vocabulary lesson and our Valentine’s Day Game for Young Learners – Practicing Gerunds. We also have a printable Love Idioms poster for you!

     

Purchase a subscription to access all our Young Learner resources. Only $7 a month.

Sources: Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., and Oxford Dictionaries Online, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com

Tanya Trusler

Tanya is a freelance editor and writer with an extensive background as an ESL teacher. She edits lesson plans, creates new materials, and writes weekly blog posts for ESL-Library and Sprout English. Her company is Editing to a T. Follow her on Twitter (@tanyatrusler) and Google Plus.

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