Steven Latimer

As we all know, yesterday was the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. What many don't know is that since 2002, every subsequent September 11 has been designated "Patriot Day" by a presidential proclamation, which is authorized by a resolution the Congress passed long ago. (This year's proclamation can be found here.)

Few Americans actually call it that, and even then, it is an exercise in spelling and punctuation. On Wednesday at 7 p.m., I appeared as a guest on Jonathan and Nate's A-List Show on WVCW. Toward the end of the program, we talked a bit about remembering the attacks and I brought up that it is designated as Patriot Day.

The next day I received a text message from co-host Nate Waggoner in which he sardonically writes, "Happy patriot's day!" This just goes to show you how much of a grammatical exercise this is; Nate is certainly referring to Patriot Day, however he actually references Patriot's Day -- a civic holiday observed in some states, namely Massachusetts, that commemorates the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord that kicked off the American Revolutionary War. Patriot's Day occurs in April.