To HATE it when people say "your" instead of "you're"

[Twitterqueen]

I realise this should probably be in pedants' corner but I am becoming more and more irritated at so many posters misusing the word 'your'. It's lazy, it doesn't make sense and it's just wrong.

And yes, I'm in a bad mood today.

"If your going to the shops can you buy x,y,z...." NO NO NO. The word is you're! The apostrophe denotes a missing letter and an abbreviation!
You a're.

The word 'your' is possessive. So you could say "If your chauffeur is going to the shops today..." or daughter, or son.

Rant over.

Fauch, that's wrong on so many levels!:o

Oh dear at that tattoo. But people have script and language they don't understand tattooed on too, are they sure if what it means? It reminds me of Sheldon asking Penny why did she have the Chinese character for soup tattooed on her buttock and she says it's not soup, it's courage and he replies, I suppose it does take courage to demonstrate that kind of commitment to soup.

I've just outed myself as a big bang geek

It makes me wince when I see it but I try not to openly criticise "normal people" for doing it. Lots of people just don't understand the rules or don't see the point in learning them now.

I am more outspoken when seeing errors like this when someone should have known better. I used to work at a publishing company and my boss, who was an editor, used inappropriate apostrophes everywhere which would have made a terrible impression on the people people receiving the documents being sent out. I sometimes managed to surreptitiously change them without her knowing as she'd get the hump if I pointed it out. The headmistress of my son's school (rated outstanding) sends out a Friday newsletter littered with spelling and grammar mistakes. I'm so tempted to offer to proofread it for her!

On the other hand, grammar is entirely artificial, made up by humans when the earth was already millions of years old. No one will drop dead over a misplaced apostrophe.

It could lead to some unfortunate misunderstandings though. There's a big difference between "knowing your shit" and "knowing you're shit".

It goes for capitalisation too. "Helping your Uncle Jack off a horse" is a world away from "helping your uncle jack off a horse".

Haven't RTFT, so it may have been pointed out already: how can you hear the difference when people say "your" instead of "you're"?

Both words sound the same.

Unless you're talking about WRITING, not speaking. In which case if you're going to be pedantic, then be precise about it.

Loving Honeylulu's examples of the importance of apostrophes and capitalisation above!

Oldsu
I personally don't understand why so many people write 'loose' instead of 'lose' it really seems to be incredibly common on some discussion boards, FB and Twitter

I think it's an easy mistake to make. 'Lose' has got a long 'oo' sound but is spelt with only one 'o'. It sounds just like 'loos', which is spelt with 'oo'. Written down, you'd be forgiven for thinking 'lose' might rhyme with 'pose' or 'rose', but it doesn't.

As for the OP's your and you're - getting it wrong can sometimes be a typo.

Overall, tiny things to get cross about.

owl and worse was I felt like he was judging me for correctly using your/you're! So if I said "Please stop your advances" I felt like I was awaiting a sassy "It's you're not your"

I used to work with a boss whose grammar was distinctly dodgy, and it was in a field when it was important to draft things properly. I started out correcting the mistakes incredibly tactfully, making out that it was just one or two typos, or jokily saying he needed to humour my inner pedant. Then he started moaning about the tidiness of my desk, so the gloves came off. It worked a treat.