In the United States, Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend.
We want to note this interesting (and timely) grammar tip from WebExhibits:
Daylight Saving Time
Spelling and grammar
The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time. Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Because of this, it would be more accurate to refer to DST as daylight-saving time. Similar examples would be a mind-expanding book or a man-eating tiger. Saving is used in the same way as saving a ball game, rather than as a savings account.
Nevertheless, many people feel the word savings (with an ‘s’) is mellifluous off the tongue. Daylight Savings Time is also in common usage, and can be found in dictionaries.
Adding to the confusion is that the phrase Daylight Saving Time is inaccurate, since no daylight is actually saved. Daylight Shifting Time would be better, and Daylight Time Shifting more accurate, but neither is politically desirable.
Source: WebExhibits: Daylight Saving Time
I think English has a lot of confusing words and phases for many learners. Spelling and grammar are complicated but I love learning English
This is very interesting! I learned that I’ve been saying “Daylight Saving Time” wrong all of these years. You would think the subject would have come up in one of the many English classes I have had to take. It is crazy how many English phrases have exceptions to the rules. Maybe we should just change the phrase all-together since it causes so much confusion.