Do not let ‘you’re’ mistake be your downfall. Too many people with fluid English language writing skills overlook this simple distinction. The misuse of your and you’re often makes otherwise sound arguments seem sloppy.
The difference is simple. Your is a possessive pronoun meaning ‘something that belongs to you’. It is also an attributive adjective; it relates to a noun the same way other adjectives do. If red or green identify the color of a book, for instance, your identifies the owner of the book. Example: The red book is your book. Your book, your ideas, your mistakes, your uncanny ability to overlook that squiggly green line in the spell check (hypothetically speaking, of course).
On the other hand, you’re is the contracted form of you are. You’re (you are) now amazed at the simplicity of your errors, aren’t you?!
If you’re still not sure about using you’re vs. your, try the replacement test: replace you’re with you are (expand the contraction).
Example: It is ___________ responsibility to conserve water!
Your, or you’re? I doubt you’re trying to say, “It is ‘you are’ responsibility to conserve water”, so you should fill in the blank with your instead. Therefore, the sentence should read:
It is your responsibility to conserve water.
I bet you can now see how silly a mistake this is!
Where you’re fails, you’re go for using your! Remember, ‘Don’t let your mistakes be your downfall!’
How do you come up with these quirky headings? Great! Just Great!
You’re doing a great job!
Thank you! And thanks to Shivana for an excellent post as well