Your and You're

For those of you who don't have time to read this whole post, here's the quick guide to your and you're:

You're – You are


Your – Something you own


Your and you're has to be the most divisive aspect of grammar around. Confusion about these two is so widespread that MC Grammar sometimes hurls himself onto his large, four-poster bed and cries from a sense of helplessness. But we can sit around all day and find people to blame for this grammatical mishap, or we can settle this score on the dancefloor. Come with me!


As I've said before, MC Grammar loves you, and doesn't want you to feel bad if you've just looked at the quick guide above, and your face is becoming paler as every grammar mistake you've ever made with your and you're is now dancing in front of your eyes like so many mischieveous leprechauns. There's no need to feel bad, just grab the horns of now and ride fearlessly into a grammatically correct future!


The best way to work out whether you're after your or you're in a sentence, is to ask yourself if you're saying you are, or if you are referring to something the other person owns. For example. 'Hey! You're right!' means 'you are right.' If you say 'your right', you're referring to their right-hand side.


Think of it like this - you cannot say any of these things:


Your great


Hope your ok


Your lying


Your welcome


Your looking trim



Because 'Your' is like 'Mine', 'hers', 'his' and 'theirs'. It's something that belongs to you.


But you can say:


What's your phone number?


Your mum!


Your car is missing


Your jumper is nice


Your cat just said 'Aubergine'


If you ever get completley confused, the best thing to do is, each time you're about to use your, ask yourself if you're saying you are in a shortened version. If you're not, hold back cowboy! Control yourself and your base animal urges! You'll be needing a you're there instead.

This video is also very entertaining and helpful. I think it's mostly directed at the thousands of abusive comments he gets for sharing his videos with the world, hence the slightly bitter undertone. MC Grammar has too much love to share this bitter undertone, but likes the cut of his jib anyway.