Wordy Wednesdays Q. What is the difference between “your” and “you’re”? A. You’re not alone in your confusion about this one. Confusing the two words is a common mistake. Fortunately, it’s an easy one to avoid. “Your” is a possessive adjective. It shows that something belongs to someone as in “your chair,” “your personality” or “your food.” “You’re” is a contraction of “you are.” Use it only if you mean to say “you are.” For example, “you are correct,” could become “you’re correct” but not “your correct.” Try to swap the right word and change to “your correct” and you leave the reader wondering how “correct” could belong to anyone. Learning the difference between “you’re” and “your” is fairly simple. The situation gets a little more complicated once a third word, “yore,” is introduced. “Yore” is a noun that according to Merriam-Webster’s refers to “a time past and especially long past” as in “days of yore.” “You’re,” “your” and “yore” are all homophones — words that sound the same but have different meanings and in some cases different spellings. Now that you’re on the right track to improving your language skills, don’t regress to the grammar mistakes of yore. Do you have a grammar issue you’d like to see addressed in Wordy Wednesdays? Send it to Rachel Brown at rachelbrown@daltoncitizen, friend her on Facebook at facebook/RachelBrownDCN or follow her on Twitter, @RachelBrown_DCN.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:51:05 +0000
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