Now that its departure is upon us, I thought it worth covering one of the most common grammar mistakes in all of chronology: daylight saving time. It is neither plural (daylight savings time) nor possessive (daylight saving’s time). Under the correct punctuation, the word “saving” appears as a gerund, modifying the word “daylight.” Think of it in its inverse and you’ll hardly be tempted into the errors. You’d never say “savings daylight” or “saving’s daylight.”
The strict rule-follower will include a hyphen as “daylight” and “saving” combine to create a compound adjective that modifies the word “time.” But “daylight saving time” without the hyphen has ingrained itself into common use to the point where it has earned a bye on the hyphen rule for compound modifiers.
However you choose to present or butcher the expression, in the name of perspective, one should always be mindful that daylight saving time has nighttime losing time as its unavoidable adjunct.
