Hobby Lobby Homeschool

When I'm out and about with the munchkins, I often try to sneak in a lesson or two. For example, if I buy something that costs $6.84 and give the clerk a $10 (on the rare occasion that I actually have cash in my purse), I'll ask one of the kiddos to tell me how much change I'm getting back. If I'm really quick (and have a calculator handy), I can get the answer before Thing 3 does. He is a math whiz!

Sometimes, a lesson just jumps off a shelf and slaps me in the face. Today was one of those times. We were strolling around Hobby Lobby when I glanced over at a shelf filled with frames and saw this spelling/grammar lesson staring me in the face.

In case you have old eyes like I do, that picture frame says "Grandma's are Great!"

When I saw the frame, I literally gasped and said, "Oh. My. Goodness." My children looked around, expecting to see someone impaled by a knitting needle.

I admit that I am a grammar and spelling snob. It's rare that I read an article on the website of our local paper with stopping 10 times and exclaiming, "For crying out loud! Don't these people proofread?" Even so, I was pretty sure that my 8 and 10 year olds could spot the problem with this frame.

First of all, to be completely nit picky, given that "Great" is capitalized, "are" should have been capitalized, as well. I could let that go, however, if not for the other glaring mistake on this commercially made frame that some sweet child is going to give Grandma for Mother's Day. Let me show you again.

After regaining my composure, I turned to my darling children and said, "Do you see anything wrong with this frame?" Without hesitating, they both said, "It's the apostrophe." Thing 3 then added, "You don't use an apostrophe to make a word plural."

Ahhhhhh. Exactly. You don't use an apostrophe to make a word plural. Ever. You don't do it when addressing Christmas cards. (It's "The Smiths", please, not "The Smith's".) You don't do it on a picture frame.

My children are paying attention.

I did consider the possibility that some sweet child is going to put a photo of Grandma's cookies in this frame, making the caption, "Grandma's Are Great!", entirely grammatically correct. In that case, just ignore this post.