Growing stupidity.
It seems that the more reading, gaming, etc. that I do, the dumber people seem. The most recent offense comes from PC Gamer Magazine’s July 2007 issue on page 16. “And if you’re performance at either degrades as a result of too much…” (sic) Since when is a person “performance”? What the crap! Another comes from a television ad that’s been running for the past few days “In less then 30 days…” (sic) First of all, then denotes time, e.g., one then two; secondly, than denotes a comparison, e.g., one is more than two. How hard is that? Apparently it’s a lot harder than I’d expect. Another common terribleness is that of the incorrect usage of the possessive apostrophe when applied to a name that ends in an S. According to Purdue’s Online Writing Laboratory “add ’s to the singular form of the word (even if it ends in -s), e.g. James’s hat”. This is a fairly common screw-up by professional companies, *cough* Blizzard’s World of Warcraft *cough*, where the ’s is left off in favor of only the apostrophe. This is just wrong, the only known exception being that of religious origin, e.g., Jesus’ apostles and Moses’ stone tablet. Anyhoo, I’m done ranting. I don’t claim perfection, I just think that professional companies should be, umm, I dunno, professional…
Your first example doesn’t make sense. Is it meant to say “your performance,” and that’s the problem with it? Because the example you gave doesn’t make sense regardless. Maybe we need to see the whole sentence?
I’ve got two more examples for you:
-a “heart rendering” book on Amazon (she meant “heart-rending,” which means “heartbreaking”)
-those signs on telephone poles that say “We demolish house”
Yeah, it’s meant to say “your performance,” and that’s the problem with it. The point was to acknowledge the idiocy of the usage of “you’re” when it should have been “your.”