Learn English – What does “You had me at the proper use of ‘you’re’ ” mean

sentence-meaning

I was asked by a friend, the meaning of this sentence:

You had me at the proper use of you’re.

Unfortunately, I was unable to help her. Can anyone tell me: what does that sentence mean?

Best Answer

I am a little leery of offering no corroboration of my answer beyond the accident of my own birth, but several people have asked me today to post such answers, so here goes.

It's a joke. Fundamentally it's approbation of your correct use of (what many people find to be) difficult homonyms.

First: You had me at is a jocular way of saying I was yours at the very moment you.. or You possessed my heart at the moment..

The original was You had me at "hello", meaning I was in love with you from the moment I met you or you didn't have to say anything more than "hello": I was immediately enchanted.

Here, the proper use of you're is a snarky reference to the fact that many (many!) people confuse the homonyms you're & your (i.e. use them improperly), so someone who used them correctly is a very rare, special, endearing, enchanting person indeed (to people who care about the proper use of English.

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