By Marc Medley.
A couple of days ago I posted on my various social media sites concerning how often I see people who are entering posts continuously confuse“your” with “you’re.” I even went as far as to define the difference between the two.
You’re is a contraction of you are. It has no other uses. This is a 100% rule. If you cannot expand it to you are in your sentence, then it is wrong.
The word your sits before another word (usually a noun or a pronoun) to show that it belongs to “you” (e.g., your car, your arm), is of “you” (e.g., your picture, your photograph) or is related to “you” (e.g., your uncle). Source – http://www.grammar-monster.com/easily_confused/youre_your.htm
I was saddened but not shocked at the feedback that I received on the various sites, however, the one that bothered me the most was the one that said “I think most people don’t care.” I was not shocked because I have become accustomed to all of the excuses that we make for not doing something correctly. Now I pondered hard and long concerning how I would write a blog post about this, particularly since it is my understanding that blog posts are to be short if they are to be read, so I thought I’d handle it this way.
For most if not all job and college interviews, an essay is now required to be written. If you use “you’re” where it should have been “your,” or use “your”where it should have been “you’re,” in all likelihood you have assured yourself of not getting the job or the college acceptance. The same holds true for all of the other words such as “were” and “where”, etc. etc. etc.
I think this post is short enough and one can get the point. This is why we must care. Something to critically think about. I invite you to share your thoughts in the commentary section of the blog and to follow The Critical Thinker on Twitter @thinkcritical01 and on Tumblr @thecriticalthinker01.tumblr.com.
