Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 217. The word origin today is Mother's
Day. Okay. If somebody wants a screenshot do it right now. Let's get right to it.
Mother's day is a national holiday celebrated on the second Sunday in May in the US. So a national
holiday means that the whole country celebrates it. It's not an official holiday though. It's
not like a federal holiday that people would get paid for. Well first of all It's on a Sunday. So
most people are off anyway , but even if you normally work on Sunday you don't get paid extra
for this day. It's not a it's not a recognized federal holiday, but it is a national holiday.
The whole country celebrates it. Let's continue. And in Britain, it's the fourth Sunday in Lent.
You know, Lent that's leading up to Easter Sunday. It is a day when children usually send cards and
give presents or flowers to their mothers to honor them. Throughout the world, some other countries
may follow the US state because I think the US was actually the first country to officially make
Mother's Day and some other countries picked it up as well. Or a lot of them did. Or , or choose one
of their own. So they may have they may follow the Mother's Day of the US or maybe just choose
another one. Let's continue. The creation of Mother's Day is mostly credited to Anna Jarvis .
The first Mother's Day was celebrated in 1907 and was a memorial for the mother of Anna Jarvis
at St. Andrews Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia. She started a campaign in 1905.
The same year her mother died. She and another peace activist, Julia Ward Howe lobbied to create
a special national day for mothers. Congress originally rejected the proposal to make it
an official holiday, but due to the effort of Anna Jarvis some states officially started to recognize
it. So the states took it upon themselves to start recognizing this. And in 1911 all did.
So it followed went around the whole country and every single one eventually did it on their own.
Finally in 1914 , Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation to have the second Sunday
of every May to be recognized as Mother's Day. So this is how it originally came about. Let's
continue. By the 1920's, the commercialization of the holiday started with Hallmark you know,
the famous greeting cards company. Maybe having a little struggling a bit today you know with
e-cards, but was one of the biggest card companies for many many decades in the US.
They created the Mother's Day cards and some flower and candy companies followed with you know,
special either candy or flowers for Mother's Day. Anna Jarvis herself was not happy with this
and suggested people should write handwritten (excuse me) letters to their mother instead of
gifts and cards. So even though she helped to create it she didn't like the way some of it
turned out. She didn't want the commercialization as much. She thought it should be more in just
honor of the mother. All right. Anyway, and we have two examples to show just how it is used.
He bought his mother some flowers and a card for Mother's Day. Of course, that's typical.
That family is going to take their mother out to dinner for Mother's Day. Okay. Anyway,
I hope you got it. I hope it's clear. I hope it was informative. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.