You're Grammar Lacks Sophistication

What is it about the English language that some people just don't understand? Whether it's neglecting to end sentences with periods, omitting apostrophes when using contractions, or not knowing when to use a question mark (It makes you sound? Like you're speaking? With an upward inflection?), encountering poor grammatical skills takes less than a minute on the Internet. There are countless examples to choose from, but here’s one common mistake that irks me the most: the incorrect usage of "your" and "you're."

your
1. (a form of the possessive case of you used as an attributive adjective): Your jacket is in that closet. I like your idea. Compare yours.
2. one's (used to indicate that one belonging to oneself or to any person): The consulate is your best source of information. As you go down the hill, the library is on your left.
3. (used informally to indicate all members of a group, occupation, etc., or things of a particular type): Take your factory worker, for instance. Your power brakes don't need that much servicing.

you're
contraction of you are: You're certain that's right?

(Definitions from http://dictionary.reference.com/)

In case the above definitions did not sufficiently explain the difference between the two words, let me put it in plainly: "Your" is a possessive pronoun used to address a third party, while "you're" is a contraction of "you are." Unfortunately, this matter of an apostrophe and the letter "e" seems to confound a startling amount of Internet users.

Let's use the website "Your Going To Hell" (http://www.yourgoingtohell.com/) as an example. The site is dedicated to informing you of an impending fate of burning for eternity in hellfire. While putting your faith in the Lord and accepting Jesus Christ as your savior may indeed save you from this everlasting damnation, it apparently still will not put your English skills on par with those of a sixth grader.

There are plenty more examples of this throughout the web. I know that not everybody is going to have perfect English skills, and that we all make mistakes sometimes. However, it is unacceptable that people consistently use them incorrectly.

Worse, this error has become more common in the real world. I recently saw a group of people protesting in favor of impeaching George W. Bush. Who hasn't, right? Anyway, one woman in particular caught my eye. She was holding a sign that read "You're President Lied, Thousands Died." Again, I could have let this pass; she was one of about two dozen people. Then I took a look at some of the other signs and, to my dismay, found that they, too, contained errors of similar nature. Oh, and references to Dr. Seuss books:

"Your a mean one, Mr. Bush. Your as cold as ice."

"You know that it should say 'Y-O-U-'-R-E', don't you?", I asked the lady holding the aforementioned sign, even though it was quite evident that she did not. "Shut up you arrogant little shit," she replied rudely. Deciding that continuing the conversation would be pointless, I walked away. Not only did this woman think that her slogan was grammatically correct, she also called me arrogant when I dared to point out that it was not, thus demonstrating that she also had little knowledge of the definition of "arrogant."

What is the world coming to? Not only are full-grown adults ignorant about the nuances of English, but also they're doubtlessly teaching their children the same butchered language. Do we really want to nurture generation of illiterates? Oh wait, don't answer that. While the likelihood of "your" and "you're" bringing an end to civilization is pretty slim, consider this: If people are not aware of the difference between those two words, who is to say what other elements of language they're screwing up?

Perhaps they think that "irregardless" is an actual word, and use it on a regular basis to hide the fact that they are in dire need of having a lexical clue-by-four delivered to the head. These people seem to think that using "big" words, albeit incorrectly, will make them look intelligent. Unfortunately, you need to use the words in the correct fashion for that to work out. So what should we do about it? Going around correcting every little mistake that comes out of every person's mouth will almost certainly make you look like an ass, and is that really any better? I would say not. However, you shouldn't feel bad if every now and again you feel the need to clarify the meaning of a word that you hear used the wrong way. I hope you won't get your head bitten off.