The Grammar Girl

Since Doe's last post about "then and than" usage, I got to thinking what my pet peeve is.

It is your and you are aka you're, a contraction.
Your means belonging to you.
You are or You're welcome.

Now, what is so annoying is when people make PSP snags and tags and put your welcome versus (not verses) you're welcome.

And then there is yore, as in "days of yore" meaning yesteryear. Yore is not used much anymore, maybe in a song, and an old song at that.

Your, you're, yore are homonyms or homophones -- sound the same spelled differently, and different definitions.

Another confusioned set of homophones:
There -- There is the book.
Their -- You know the Temples, their (belonging to the Temples) dog Muffie is so cute.
They're -- They're (They are) going to leave soon.

Now on Oprah -- a viewer wrote in about incorrect English on Oprah and Gayle's Road Trip graphic that drove her crazy.
She said it should be Oprah's and Gayle's Road Trip, each name gets an apostrophe s.

The Grammar Girl (the guest expert) says if it is two people doing the same thing or owning the same thing, then the last name gets the apostrophe s, not both names.

Remember it is Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream as the example.

So for any other usage issues, you can visit The Grammar Girl who was seen on Oprah, and listen to her audio quips of Quick and Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing, or read her blog and all the language usage comments by her readers.

You might learn something new, or refresh your memory.