The correct usage of your and you're

[Sean3DD]

Am I the only one who has come across this problem.

It is obviously associated with both spelling and grammatical context and
occurs in both 2003 & 2007 versions of Word.

In a sentence such as ‘thank you for your much valued patronage', my
spelling/grammar checker insists that this spelling is wrong and should be
changed to ‘thank you for you're much valued patronage'. If contractions are
not used it would read as ‘thank you for you are much valued patronage'. For
those of us who have struggled for years to improve our use of the english
language, being told that this is a 'common mistake', is just irritating.

I wonder how many students have been 'down graded' because they had accepted
the Word version.

Not a question so much as a rant - and as I have seen on many a web site
gramma is an affectionate contraction of Grandma and not the method by which
most languages control the usage of words and sentences.

regards to all

Sean 3DD

 

[Helmut Weber]

Hi Sean,

there are limits to computers.
Natural language is fuzzy and computers
have problems with all kinds of fuzzyness.
But that isn't the problem here.

If the scope of the grammar checker was reduced to
one word before and one word after a word, then it
would be understandable, that "your much valued"
was marked as wrong, IMHO.

Though, here and now,
"Thank you for your much valued patronage"
passes the test as correct and both
"Thank you for you are much valued patronage."
and
"Thank you for you're much valued patronage."
are marked as wrong.

Word 2003(11.5604.5606)

--
Greetings from Bavaria, Germany

Helmut Weber, MVP WordVBA

Win XP, Office 2003
"red.sys" & Chr$(64) & "t-online.de"

 

[JoAnn Paules]

And this is exactly why you can't allow a computer to take care of all of
your grammar and spelling issues. If a student receives a bad grade because
he blindly allowed a computer to "correct" his text, he deserves the grade
he received.

--
JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]

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