You’re Judged on Your Grammar
A guide to the very common grammar error: confusing your and you’re.
A very common grammar error in written English is mixing up your and you’re. Get that wrong and you stand out as sloppy, ill-educated or just plain illiterate. So here’s a brief guide to getting it right.
You’re is short for ‘you are.’ If you can replace the your / you’re in the sentence with ‘you are’ and it still makes sense, then use you’re.
Your is a possessive adjective showing that the item it comes before belongs to you.
For example: is that your car? (Is that the car belonging to you?)
You can’t write ‘is that you’re car?’ because ‘is that you are car?’ doesn’t make any sense. Not even if you actually are a car!
To recap:
you’re = you are
your = belonging to you
And to help you remember, just think of the title of this article:
You’re judged on your grammar = You are judged on the grammar belonging to (used by) you
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February 16th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
You are so right, but i think as english for many is a difficult language sometimes we have to allow for non-english speakers. Even americans even though they speak and write english, it is not always in the purest form, i.e. color – colour.
February 16th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
I’ve been guilty of mixing those two up in the past. I always keep that trick in mind when using those two words. The same with its and it’s.
February 16th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Sweet article.
I know that I have not been a hundred percent innocent of this mistake (although I do know better, I just don’t type so well), but it bothers me when I see the two confused.
February 16th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Very well said Bruce and a good tip on getting it the right way.
February 16th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Yes this is very true! If you speak wrongly than people will think your under educated.
February 16th, 2011 at 6:56 pm
FAB, Bruce! Commenting from the phone so will give a view on the PC tomorrow too! I saw you had another up too, will ck it out and wish to link one of them at the guest spot next month! Sorry, run on sentence…typing from phone does that to me.
Someone mentioned it’s and its above…that one messes with me sometimes!
Thanks again for a great way to use your and you’re properly!
February 17th, 2011 at 2:12 am
This is one of my utter pet peeves. You’re right on the money with your article, sir
February 17th, 2011 at 2:30 am
interesting
February 17th, 2011 at 5:58 am
I’m getting there a lot of writers especially men struggle with grammar and spelling. It takes courage to say yes I got that wrong when you have been writing for years and have catelogues of work. LB
February 17th, 2011 at 6:34 am
Another good and easy to follow lesson on grammar.