Princess Eugenie made a your/you’re mistake on her Instagram page


Yesterday was “National Siblings Day” in the UK. To celebrate, Princess Eugenie posted this Instagram celebrating her sister Beatrice. Eugenie has operated her own Instagram for a while now, and for the most part, it’s been pretty uncontroversial. I really believe that Eugenie is solely operating it too – she doesn’t have a team of people working on social media. Which might explain the typo seen above – a classic your/you’re mistake. Eugenie tells Beatrice “your the best especially when helping me and my dress into the getaway car.”

As someone on the internet, I see your/you’re mistakes all the time, on Twitter and Instagram, in blog comments and sometimes major magazine articles. Typos happen, grammatical mistakes happen. The your/you’re issue is really common, although I rarely make it? My mistakes are usually spelling errors (I’m a terrible speller) or just weird AF phrasing issues which I try to catch before I hit publish. But people really jumped on Eugenie for this mistake, I think because A) she’s a college educated princess and she should know better and B) because she left the mistake up for hours. Even as I’m writing this, the Instagram is still up. It’s one thing to make a mistake – we all do that – but to not correct it? I don’t know. Maybe she deserves some of the harsh grammar-police criticism.

Victoria and Albert Museum Summer Party

Eugenie Jack wedding Windsor

Photos courtesy of WENN, Instagram.

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40 Responses to “Princess Eugenie made a your/you’re mistake on her Instagram page”

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  1. Weaver says:

    How is her name pronounced phonetically?

    • Becks1 says:

      You-ge-nee. I think she has said its like “use your knees” more or less. (or use the knees?) something like that.

    • Marlene says:

      YOU-she-nee.
      Stress on the first syllable, and the ‘g’ is soft.

  2. T.Fanty says:

    Ugh, this one drives me bananas. My SIL is a public school teacher and she can’t tell the difference. It makes me crazy. The other one that annoys the crap out of me, and that my kids’ teachers do ALL THE TIME is “she did good.” I actually corrected the teacher once.

    • Ader says:

      Wait, what? Your SIL, who is a teacher, STILL doesn’t know the difference? LOLOLOLOL!!!!!

      As for good / well, I am right there with you!!! Drives. Me. Nuts!!!!

      My husband tortures me with it. LOL. A few years ago, I woke up one day, and he had put my copy of William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well” right next to me…but he had crossed out “well” with an obnoxious orange highlighter and replaced it with “GOOD” in giant letters. (It still makes me laugh, though……)

    • T1000 says:

      As Tracy Jordan said on 30 Rock, “You’re doing well. Superman does good.” Sick burn! 😊

  3. EMc says:

    Or maybe shes giving it a big eye roll bc everyone makes silly mistakes and its not that big of a deal.. its social media.

    • Ainsley7 says:

      Exactly. It’s not as if it’s professionally run by a team. It’s just her private Instagram and she’s probably busy doing other things.

    • Becks1 says:

      Yeah, the only thing that annoys me more than when someone makes a stupid grammar mistake like this on social media (because I admit it, it does really annoy me!!!) is when someone else points it out and corrects them.

      • Kristen820 says:

        Agreed. To both sentiments. The error drives me nutters! But it’s an error I make sometimes, too (Using homophones while typing trips me up pretty frequently, actually) But the ONLY times I’ll correct someone on it is when it’s A) a troll (few things are more condescending that a single *you’re), or B) my BFF. Simply because she’s fun to antagonize lol

      • HeyThere! says:

        SAME! I give a lot of passes because my phone autocorrects my proper grammar to incorrect grammar, or a totally different random word!!!

    • Agirlandherdog says:

      I totally silently judge people’s grammar. I know all the rules. I flinch when I see a mistake… and yet sometimes I still type the wrong thing. For example, when I’m replying quickly to a text. It happens. Would I personally fix it? Yes. I would. Because it drives me nuts. But good lord, I think we have enough to worry over without making a grammatical error in a social media post international news. Grammar and spelling is not an indication of intelligence or even education. I know PhDs who can’t spell to save their lives.

    • Princessk says:

      This is such a non story, who hasn’t made that mistake before?

  4. Char says:

    Imagine if it was Meghan’s mistake…

    • Snappyfish says:

      Not to be snarky but Meghan is an educated woman and with the exception of The Cambridge’s no one else in the royal family has a formal education. However with a nod to the girls parents who are straight up nitwits what really should anyone expect

      • perplexed says:

        Prince Charles went to Cambridge, I believe. He IS university-educated. I think even Eugenie and Beatrice went to university.

        Because of that, I always wondered why Harry waS not required to go to university, even a less prestigious one. Meghan is more educated than her husband but not necessarily every single member of the royal family.

        If Queen Elizabeth didn’t go to university, I just assume that’s because she comes from a different generation where people in general (male or female) didn’t go to university. However, I do think she probably got private tutoring that is likely better than anything we’d receive in public school. You can tell by the way she speaks that she’s been educated in a way that is “above the peasants.”

      • Upstate Diva says:

        Eugenie did go to university.

      • Cee says:

        Peter, Zara, Beatrice and Eugenie hold university degrees. More importantly, they all hold jobs, too. Charles, Andrew and Edward are also uni grads.
        Harry chose to forgo uni and enrolled at Sandhurst directly.

      • Tina says:

        It’s not uncommon for posh young men to go straight to Sandhurst, especially if they’re not particularly intellectual (as Harry definitely isn’t) and know that they are interested in a career in the Forces (as Harry definitely was).

      • Princessk says:

        It is so unfair to label anyone as being not intellectual. Harry did not perform well at school for a number of reasons…..dyslexia? Also the loss of his mother followed by years of sensational stories about his mother.

      • Tina says:

        @PrincessK, I think it is far more unfair to expect everyone to be intellectuals. Many people aren’t, and that’s ok. Harry has qualities that are just as (if not more) valuable, such as empathy, charm and big-heartedness.

  5. Cherie says:

    Eh, it’s not like it was a royal press release, it was a message for her sister. In this case I would equate harsh criticism with not much else going on. (As I comment on a royal grammar story)…

  6. Sassy says:

    Since Meghan isn’t allowed to make mistakes neither should the born royals got to hold all to the same standards.

  7. Cee says:

    Some people are just terrible – to attack her because she made a very typical mistake? I saw it and was able to just ignore it.
    Why would she delete that post due to ONE mistake? She’s harmless and some people are extremely obnoxious.

    • Olive says:

      you don’t have to delete a post entirely if you make an error in an instagram caption – there’s an edit function.

  8. rose says:

    People who get annoyed about this kind of thing are so annoying. It’s a mistake and I don’t think it’s worth mentioning.

  9. Jb says:

    It’s sad no? Royal with money and access to the best education and she doesn’t off hand know the difference between Your and You’re? But yes keep on believing these ppl are royal blooded high class and deserve to have their (Some in her case) life paid for by tax payers! My Instagram is private and personal and I hate when I make grammatical mistakes so enough with that excuse…it’s basic grade school knowledge to know the difference!!!!

  10. Mego says:

    OFF WITH HER HEAD!!!

    Lovely that she and her sister are so close and that she honoured Bea on her insta.

  11. Karen2 says:

    What I dislike about those 2 is that Liz has insisted that those who are not born royal ie Kate & Meghan should curtsey to them. Kate will until she becomes queen & Meghan will have to 4evah. Both Kate & Meghan do a lot more than either of those 2 useless lumps. Its just centuries old protocol for the sake of it.

    Not bothered by ig grammar at all.

    • Cee says:

      Blame Princes Anne for it. She started the whole blood princess thing. Kate will outrank EVERYONE, blood princess or not, except William, Charles, and Camilla, once she is Duchess of Cornwall/Princess of Wales.
      Also, they do not curtsy to either K or M unless they’re without their husbands.

  12. launicaangelina says:

    I’m a professional grant writer and I make little mistakes like this here and there. I will forever need a proofreader. I’m pretty ‘meh’ on stuff like this unless they do it all the time.

  13. sa says:

    Silly typos and autocorrect sometimes combine to produce the wrong version of a word.

    Also, when I use my phone for things, I usually talk and let Siri transcribe, and Siri makes a lot of your/you’re and there/their/they’re mistakes. So especially for something short that could have been done on a phone, I give the benefit of the doubt.

    • BearcatLawyer says:

      This. I am a grammar nerd, and Auto-Correct is the bane of my existence. I cannot count how many times my iPhone or iPad has changed words like “well” to “we’ll” or “their” to “they’re” even when the context makes those corrections ridiculous.

      Besides, native speakers of any language will always make occasional grammatical errors. The tricks are to learn what mistakes one frequently makes and pay careful attention when writing and editing.

      • T1000 says:

        Fellow grammar nerd here! I get so annoyed when Siri autocorrects my words into something wrong. Or I’m typing something, like a regular noun, and Siri underlines it as if it’s misspelled. Then I have to check my own sanity by looking the word up in an online dictionary. 🤦🏻‍♀️
        I also recognize that this is my issue (I was lucky that I grew up reading a ton, dad’s a professor, and I work in academic publishing). I don’t try to force my issues on others (at least not this one 🤣)
        But I saw this headline thought “ohhh, how intriguing!” 🤣

  14. Jessica says:

    Ok, I’ve always wondered this, but that dress Beatrice is wearing … are those circle in the chest area her nipples? Or is that some really bad dress design?

  15. HK9 says:

    While it’s easy to get out the grammar police when we see these mistakes, it’s an Instagram post to honour her sister. Give her a break eh? 🙂

  16. Malificent says:

    Meh, it’s casual communication. I’m a writer and editor. I have a solid educational background, with plenty of awards and crazy-high test scores in language arts. I have a graduate degree in my profession. And I also have decades of experience and training. In a team of writers, I’m known as the Grammar B-tch.

    But the minute I’m tired or distracted, I start busting out the homophones too. I proofread my professional communication. But I don’t make more than a cursory proofread of my personal emails and postings — life’s too short and I’m too busy to sweat that I used “their” instead of “there” when I posting a picture of my kid on Facebook.

  17. clairej says:

    Isn’t she dyslexic? Sure she could have someone proof read, but I am not going to lose sleep over it. Writing/reading is torture for my son.