A QUICK RAMBLE ON A POINT ON LANGUAGE FOR THE SAKE OF SELF-PROMOTION
The well-known mistake of writing “your” when it should be “you’re” is exemplified in this video.
Although, I have also seen “you’re” when it should be “your”, “interestingly” enough. I’m a professional linguist and I just thought that I’d post my take on the whole thing.
Now, to his credit, the person who made this video makes a clear (proper) case as to why it’s “you’re” and not “your”. By that I mean I think anyone would agree that it sounds like it actually has a decent level of credibility and authority to it. True, what he says is correct; but it is tempting to say that he doesn’t need to say or do anything to back it up. I fully disagree with that, and insist that he does it well, hence the aforementioned decent level of credibility and authority attached to his very true point that “you’re gay” is correct and “your gay” isn’t. What I mean to say is that he doesn’t just enter into anything like a load of subjective rambling in which he leans on his own life incidents and recalled opinions or whatever from his own life which even he may not recall all that easily, in an attempt to bolster what he thinks he wants to say. In other words, wholly personal paraphernalia which he clings to for reasons which are not constructive (at best) and which others usually couldn’t hope to identify without him explaining it to them however intelligent they were (and even then there’s a fair chance of them ending up bewildered), even if they were qualified psychologists or psychiatrists or whatever. There are no unhelpful claims of would-be insightful reasoning with the statement of anything which can’t be understood by others as readily examinable or verifiable in some way. For example, yes, he makes the point that “gay” is indeed an adjective (at least in this case), and no-one can dispute that. Look it up if you don’t believe me, or if you don’t know what I’m talking about. And looking up a word in a dictionary is of course just the same for me as it is for you or anyone else, although everyone knows that – you could say it’s too easy to say.
As far as I’m concerned, though, it’s also too easy simply to say that “ ‘Your gay’ is wrong” at all, as true as it is. But on some level, it also seems too easy for me to point out that “Your” is a possessive pronoun when it’s one of the most commonly used words in English. To me it’s too easy to say that “You’re” is the abbreviation of “You are”, especially when you’re expected to choose which it is between “You’re” and “Your”. When I was studying this video for the purpose of writing this comment: there’s no sense to be gleaned from when the “hater” guy says “My gay! My gay! My gay!” and seems to cheer it; I don’t know why that bit was included – but it’s too easy for me to say that. I just believe that to point out that the “’re” bit in “you’re” stands for “are” is enough reason – self-explanatory reason – to show why it’s “you’re” that’s correct. The guy does actually say “I AM gay; you ARE gay” in his pointing out why it’s “you’re gay” that’s correct, as well as the sign bit; but the fact that “’re” is specifically supposed to be short for “are”, as conjugated from the verb “to be”, and nothing else is in my eyes a point that counts as a nec plus ultra point here. Think of it as me making that point constituting self-explanatory reasoning in connection with this matter on a level that I am happy with; a point constituting self-explanatory reasoning which definitely invalidates the need for further discussion.
That said, I challenge anyone to make a valid point about the content of this video which I don’t already know / haven’t already figured out and which it is not too easy to say when you think about it. Still, if I ever became a perfect linguist or translator, how would I know it? I don’t even believe in God, so it’s not like, under the right circumstances, I could ever expect a supernatural voice in my head to go, “George, you are now a perfect translator! Round of applause for George!” and look forward to my work life being like walk-on-the-beach easy for the rest of my life as a result. Oh well.