Yes, I AM a Snob...

...at least I am when it comes to spelling, grammar and punctuation.

I admit that fact with much fear and a bit of trembling because now, of course, any time that any one of you sees an error on my blog you will snicker at my self-righteous failure. But go ahead, snicker away. What's the fun of noticing snobbery if you don't mock it?

However, I feel I must speak up about something since this season is rife with a specific spelling/punctuation error. Perhaps I should have said something before the Christmas cards were sent, but hopefully anyone learning from this post will remember for next year.

The issue at hand is the tricky little act of referring to one's family in the plural form.

Par example:

With much love--the Smiths

or

With much love--the Smith Family

The above signature samples are correct.

If you thumb through that stack of Christmas cards on your kitchen counter, I can pretty much guarantee you'll see multiple examples, like the following, which are incorrect:

With much love--the Smith's (The presence and location of the apostrophe indicate that there is only one Smith and that some object possessed by said-Smith to which you were about to refer has been forgotten.)

and

With much love--the Smiths' (Here at least more than one Smith exists, but there is still a forgotten possession.)

If you're one of those lucky few whose surname ends with an 'S', you have even more things to keep in mind as you sign off. For example, Mrs. Jones would write:

With much love--the Joneses (Yeah, I know it looks a bit odd, but it's correct.)

or

With much love--the Jones Family

Don't let one of those rascally apostrophes sneak in there:  the Jones' 

or even worse:  the Jones'es

Names that end in -ch, x, or z also require an -es for the plural, thus:

the Crouches, the Nixes and the Martinezes are all correct.

I could go on with a few more tips regarding plural possession (such as: "We're going to the Joneses' house." <-----correct because the Joneses possess their house), but I'm sure this is already turning out to be the most boring post I've ever posted. (At least, I hope it is!)

In fact, if you're still reading this, you're probably as much of a grammar/punctuation/spelling freak as I am and therefore didn't learn anything new.

Everyone else is already logging back on to Pinterest.

Happy New Year!!!