The alleged intimacy of social media tempts many of us to make cryptic comments on each other’s posts, such as “LOL your funny.” The person merrily scrolls down to the next post while the rest of us recoil in horror, stammering “my funny WHAT?!?” Meanwhile, the next comment might be “I spotted you’re error, dude!”
INCORRECT
- Say, did you bring you’re Einstein action figure?
- My friend says that your not as funny as you look.
- Be careful; your about to tip over.
CORRECT
Your is a possessive pronoun, and possessive pronouns do not need an apostrophe. You should notice a pattern here, connected with its and whose. Once you lose your way, your dog may have lost its way as well. Luckily, you can’t lose your apostrophes because you don’t need them. Because you’re always means you are, it has nothing to do with possession. The contraction needs an apostrophe, as they always do, and the possessive pronoun does not.
MEMORY TIP
This tip is familiar by now: Substitute you are and decide whether it makes sense in the context of the sentence. Correct: You’re (“you are”?) a brilliant and grammatically correct role model for us all! Incorrect: You’re (“you are”?) grammar posts make no sense, so stick with “your grammar posts.”