Mother's Day Reading - Reading - learnEnglish-online

Read the following article about Mother's Day. Then answer
the reading comprehension questions below.



                              Mother's Day is celebrated around the world.
                              Mother's Day has a long history. Some
believe it started with ceremonies held to honour mother
goddesses, specifically Cybele, the Greek mother of gods.

In North America, the holiday started around the end of the
19th century. International Women's Day was created in
1909. Later, Mother's Day was created in 1912. The name
was created by Anna Jarvis.

An interesting note on English grammar and punctuation was
the placement of the apostrophe: Jarvis made the word
mother's, not mothers'. This means that the mother is
singular, not plural like in mothers'. Jarvis wanted it this way
to show that each single mother is important, and the holiday
is to honour each mother not mothers as a whole. This is an
interesting use of apostrophe rules to change the meaning of
a word.

Today the holiday is celebrated by many different countries at
many different times. However, the most common day is the
second Sunday in May. This is true in English speaking
countries like the United States, Canada, England, and
Australia.

In these countries Mother's Day is not a national holiday.
However, because it is on a Sunday, families have time to
spend together. People celebrate by giving gifts to their
mothers, especially flowers. It is also a common tradition to
take the mother out for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.