Today is a day of love, a day of romance, a day of… apostrophes? Yes, at this time every year we’re asked whether or not Saint Valentine requires a possessive apostrophe. So check out our punctuation advice below to make sure any notes you send to your significant other are (lovingly) error free.
While you may see ‘Valentines Day’ in some places, this is incorrect. The day in question is the day of Saint Valentine, so it ‘belongs’ to him (so to speak). And when something belongs to someone, we show this using a possessive apostrophe. Hence, ‘Valentine’s Day’ is correct.
In addition, when talking about the 14th of February, remember that ‘Valentine’s Day’ is a proper noun. As such, we need to capitalise the ‘V’ and the ‘D’ at the start of these words. If you are referring to a ‘valentine’ (i.e. a Valentine’s Day card), though, there is no need to use a capital ‘V’.
While we’re here, we should look at the etymology of Valentine’s Day. As mentioned above, it is named for Saint Valentine, an early Christian saint who has been celebrated on the 14th of February since the Middle Ages. But what does this saint have to do with love and romance?
Well, that’s a tricky question to answer, since there are multiple ‘Valentines’ associated with the date in question. But the one most people focus on is Saint Valentine of Rome.
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This Valentine is best known for being sentenced to death by Emperor Claudius II. But before he died, Valentine befriended and cured the blind daughter of his jailer, even giving her a note saying ‘From your Valentine’. And that, the story goes, was the first ever valentine.
Romantic, eh? Well, maybe not by modern standards. But the association between love and Saint Valentine only came later, possibly because the date was associated with the start of the mating season for some birds. We see this in the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote: ‘For this was on St. Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.’
So, in a very literal sense, our modern version of Valentine’s Day is all about the birds and the bees. Or the birds, at least. Chaucer didn’t have much to say about the romance of bees.
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