The occasion of Mother's Day could rank among those issues that open the sluice gates of indignant letters to the broadsheets about the use and abuse of the humble apostrophe. By the way, authors of such letters rarely notice mixed metaphors. Such people clearly lack a sense of humour. Nothing so trivial can rouse paroxysms of stamping little feet and fingers dancing nimbly on keyboards from Cairo to Kathmandu belittling those who dare misplace the apostrophe. For example, note the position of the apostrophe in the phrase ‘Mother's Day'. Does this denote the celebration of the virtues and achievements of one mother? If so, whose? In the heyday of Stalinism, such selfishness would not go unheeded as a symptom of counterrevolutionary tendencies, bourgeois revisionism and influence of foreign elements. To be sure, a totalitarian ideology demands equitable use of punctuation and placing the apostrophe after the -s plural, hence ‘Mothers' Day', the celebration of the virtues and achievements of all mothers of the nation. For some reason, this writer is thinking about ancient Egyptian priests panicking over the absence of a particular aromatic herb used in the embalming process. They send servants to scour the market for the plant, in the absence of which, the pharaoh will not be admitted into the Afterlife. A runner comes back empty-handed. The head priest grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him violently to convey the gravity of this shortage. ‘You are not looking hard enough!' the high priest bellows into the runner's face. The runner, wide-eyed with fright, blurts out an apology. ‘Sorry! Sorry! Is that all! Don't you realise the –' the high priest's voice falters. The runner still trembles even though his master's hands are no longer grasping his frame. The high priest drags the runner and forces the latter to peer into the sarcophagus. ‘Look, damn you! If His Majesty could speak now, do you know what he would say?' ‘N-no, Your Holiness,' the runner stammers. ‘His Majesty would rise up slowly...' The runner almost wets himself with fright at the prospect of someone coming back from death without a brain or intestines. ‘He would look you straight in the eye and say...' The runner tries to avert his gaze from the semi-embalmed remains of his sovereign lord. ‘Thyme is not on our side!' This writer knows how he feels, because I have spent the last hour trawling the internet for information about a book entitled ‘Smiling America' and I have a deadline to meet. Let me explain. Mother's Day in Egypt was invented by journalist Mustafa Amin –the same man who brought us ‘Love Festival' as opposed to Valentine's Day – who heard the story of a widowed mother, whose efforts to bring up her son went unrewarded when he became a doctor and left home. Not even ‘Thanks, Mum' or anything. Such an outrage induced Mr Amin to propose a festival celebrating motherhood. For whatever reason, president Gamal Abdel Nasser “ridiculed" the idea, but he “eventually accepted it". Mother's Day in Egypt was first celebrated on 21 March 1956. Wanting to find out more about the aforementioned book, and even quote the passage in which ‘3iid il-umm' is suggested, all that cyberspace could offer was the following: “Mother's Day in most Arab countries is celebrated on 21 March, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. It was introduced in Egypt by journalist HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Mustafa_ Amin" \o “Mustafa Amin" Mustafa Amin HYPERLINK “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother's_ Day" \l “cite_note-jehl-31" in his book Smiling America (1943). The idea was overlooked at the time." In fact, it was deja-vu ad infinitum as this tidbit is to be found with every reference to ‘Smiling America', which was published in 1943, hardly a time when Americans had much to smile about. No joy with ‘Amreeka mubtasima' or ‘Amreeka baasima' on google, either. Even so, here is an example of politics influencing mass celebrations: “When Mustafa Amin was arrested and imprisoned, there were attempts to change the name of the holiday from ‘Mother's Day' to ‘Family Day' as the government wished to prevent the occasion from reminding people of its founder. These attempts were unsuccessful and celebrations continued to be held on that day; classic songs celebrating mothers remain famous to this day." Meanwhile, one way to beat the apostrophe fascists is to use the term ‘Mothering Sunday', celebrated throughout Europe on the fourth Sunday during the forty days and forty nights of fasting – the period known as Lent. But there was a catch. Mothers did not get a look in. During the sixteenth century, people returned to their HYPERLINK “http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_church" \o “Mother church" mother church, the main church or cathedral of the area, for a service held halfway through Lent. Anyone who did this was said to have gone “a-mothering". Later, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother church, usually with their own mothers and other family members. It was often the only time that whole families could gather together, since on other days they were prevented by conflicting working hours. Children and young people who were employed as household servants were given a day off on that date so they could visit their families and pick wild flowers on the way to place in the church or give to their mothers. Eventually, the religious tradition evolved into the Mothering Sunday secular tradition of giving gifts to mothers. The question now is, Will Egypt inherit Father's Day? If so, where will the apostrophe go? Better still, as Egyptians' sense of humour never flags, some wag somewhere might suggest Mother-in-law's Day. (Or should it be ‘Mother's-in-law Day'?) Well, the first Mother-in-law's day was celebrated on 5 March 1934 in Amarillo, Texas. Note that ‘amarillo' is Spanish for ‘yellow'. Could this be a reference to timid sons-in-law? According to the source, “the observance was later moved to the fourth Sunday of October". How appropriate! Nothing like a good old family punch-up on a dusty Sunday afternoon after the kushari and molokhiyya have been wolfed. Interesting to note that this ‘holiday' was initiated by the editor of a local newspaper. Now, I have an idea for a festival...
