Everything has the capacity to victimize these days. Even the apostrophes reveal their nasty classist nature. At least, some people think they do:
If it offends your delicate literary sensibilities to see “you’re” in place of “your,” or “it’s” instead of “its,” find a job as a copyeditor. Not everyone has the same education or background as you, or might not be native speakers of English (my dad’s family isn’t). I understand the need to write as cleanly as possible if you want your words to reach and audience, but someone’s Facebook page is hardly prize-winning material. A slip up here and there is understandable. This is one of the subtle ways classism creeps into the progressive blogosphere.
Since we are trading victimizations here, I object to the quoted statement in my capacity as an immigrant. The idea that immigrants are especially likely to make mistakes with the apostrophe in English is evidence of a blatant anti-immigrant bias. Apostrophe-confusion is a problem that English-speakers have. Among my students, I cannot remember a single instance when an immigrant confused “it’s” and “its.” The use of the apostrophe to mark possession is one of the very first things one is taught in English classes.
I also have to report that I never saw any difference between the frequency of these mistakes among my rich students at Yale and my poor students at State U.
People who write “you’re” instead of “your” are not victims of any sort of classist or anti-immigrant bias. They are simply lazy, careless writers who do not respect their readers.
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