English
Pronunciation
audio|en-uk-daylight-savings-time.ogg|Audio (UK)
Noun
daylight savings time
- daylight saving time (see usage notes)
Translations
Finnish: kesäaika
Usage notes
Many editors replace this phrase with daylight saving time, with no "s" after "saving". Some sources, such as the North Carolina State University's Online Writing Lab, state that the form "daylight savings time" is incorrect. The justification is that "saving" is a present participle, and this "time" is for saving daylight; thus it is incorrect to use the plural noun "savings".
Despite such prescription, colloquial use is uniformly daylight savings time, especially in orated speech. Most websites use daylight savings time not daylight saving time. No estimate can reasonably be made about published books, as most authors will not have their attention drawn to this (confer previous usage note.) Also of note is that daylight savings time was the original name, yet over twenty years after the proscriptive change occurred, the new name is only used in "corrected" published texts, but not at all, colloquially.
Also of note is that the new name has a somewhat awkward pronunciation, invariably leaving the emphasis on 'saving' as if it is time to save someone only during daylight. The proscriptive change is probably not widely accepted as it converts the previous unambiguous phrase into a curiously ambiguous construction.
Category:Time
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