Kirk Mahoney . com

My wife got this in an email message recently.

Problem:
The word “you’re” is incorrect here.

Explanation:
The complete sentence in the message was “Please contact me and if you’re school is near by, I may be able to deliver them to you.”

The word “you’re” — spelled Y-O-U-APOSTROPHE-R-E — is a contraction of “you are”.

Clearly, the message writer did not intend to say “… and if you are school is near by, …”; that would be nonsensical.

Instead, the writer was referring to the reader’s school, so he should have used the possessive pronoun “your” — spelled Y-O-U-R.

I believe that the common English blunder of confusing the contraction “you’re” with the possessive pronoun “your” is due to the fact that many American English speakers mistakenly pronounce these two words in the same way.

Solution:
“… and if your school is near by, …”