Grammar tip: 'Your' or 'You're'? Instagram cartoon.

Difference between your and you're
We could (and we often do) explain the difference between 'you're' with an apostrophe and 'your' without an apostrophe. Many, many people trip up on this pair of similar words.

If that includes you, each time you waste a few seconds thinking about it. Or looking it up.
Or using a grammar check, and wondering whether to trust it.

And those few seconds annoy you and interrupt your thought processes.

Sometimes it's easier to use a visual cue than to labour through a grammar issue with your over-worked intellect. So we have started providing cartoons that show-don't-tell the difference. We hope that at least some people with a your/you're disability can just flick to that mental picture, get it right, and move on to the important stuff. Like saying exactly what you mean.

Feel free to use this cartoon as is, anywhere. Pin it, for instance.

P.S. OK, we'll explain. 
With pronouns, an apostrophe always represents a missing letter or letters. So 'you're' is always short for 'you are'.

'Your' belongs to the belonging family. This includes 'my', 'his', 'her', 'its',  'our', and 'their' — and none of these has an apostrophe.

More cartoons on Pinterest.com/writingtips

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