Happy Father’s Day! And what better way to celebrate than with a little etymology? A slap-up meal followed by a nap, you say? There’ll be time for that later! For now, let’s look at where the word ‘father’ comes from and why we use an apostrophe in ‘Father’s Day’.
The Etymology of Father
Our modern word ‘father’ comes from the Old English fæder, which meant ‘he who begets a child’. This is close to several words for fathers in other languages, including Old Norse (fathir), German (Vater), Sanskrit (pitar), and Latin and Greek (both use pater).
In fact, these similarities suggest a common source, which most experts trace to a Proto-Indo-European term. And while we cannot know what it was exactly, it may have been something like pəter-.
Pa, Papa, Dad and More
So if ‘father’ comes from pəter-, where does pəter- come from? It may have evolved from the basic noise ‘pa’, which we still see in words like ‘papa’. The words ‘dad’ and ‘dada’ have similar origins in ‘da’, and we see these simple sounds in words for fathers all over the world.
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The main theory for this pattern is that ‘da’, ‘pa’ and ‘ta’ are some of the first noises that children make. The same is true of the ‘ma’ from ‘mama’, which becomes ‘mum’. As such, when babies start making noises like ‘da’ and ‘pa’, we tend to assume they’re addressing their parents. And, over time, this has led to words like ‘dad’ and ‘pa’ entering our everyday speech.
Father’s Day vs. Fathers Day
As a rule, you should always include an apostrophe in Father’s Day. This is the traditional way of writing it, but it also makes sense. After all, you usually focus on your own father on this day. Thus, the ‘Father’ in Father’s Day is typically one person, even if that person is different for each of us.
Writing ‘Fathers Day’ or ‘Fathers’ Day’, on the other hand, would imply you’re celebrating fathers in general. And while that would be admirable, you’d need a lot of stamps to send a card to every father in the world. All in all, then, you’re probably better off focusing on your own dad for today.