Hebrew grammar question

[rhu]

Shabbat is feminine; Yom (and therefore Yom Tov) is masculine. Right? So why do many (but not all) siddurim, in the מי שברך לחולים, offer

יוֹם טוֹב הִיא

rather than

יוֹם טוֹב הוּא

as the counterpart to

שַׁבָּת הִיא

?

Comments

[abbasegal.livejournal.com]

Good question. I don't know the correct answer, so instead I will suggest several!

It sounds like a mistake to me. I've seen some with
שבת\יוֹם טוֹב היא

which is just being economical with words at the cost of being slightly incorrect...

Or perhaps people get so used to saying "היא" on Shabbat that when Yom Tov rolls around they get a little sloppy, and that became codified in tradition?

Alternatively, perhaps there is some other feminine word/concept that is elided, but understood to be there, sort of like whenever you use the name of a city, it is always feminine, because "עיר" is feminine, even though it doesn't appear in the sentence. חגיגה perhaps?

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

The husband says a) mistake or b) sometimes "yom" works as feminine, but he can't think of an example right now.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

but you could try sounding out margavriel or boroparkpyro, they both get awfully excited about that sort of thing.