If you're a native English speaker and just want to avoid common grammatical errors in your writing (such as blog posts on your website) there are only a handful of rules that you need to memorize.

So this series of posts is for those who'd like to ditch the Grammarly crutch and just know what's right and what's not.

Here's the ninth one:

Youse, Yous, You's, Alot, Lot's

This may be the simplest rule ever.

None of these are real words. Don't use them!

Well, there is one Biblical exception. Lot and his family were escaping the destruction of Sodom when Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.

But unless you are specifically referring to Lot's wife (or some other possessive form of the word "lot"), the word "lot's" doesn't exist.

Youse, Yous and You's

The word "you" is already plural, though it is also used as the singular, replacing the now archaic forms of "thee" and "thou".

Any attempt to somehow make it "more plural", as in these three examples, is simply wrong. Don't do it.

Examples of correct usage are "I want all you people wearing red shirts to stand over there" and "Look at the two of you. Don't you make a lovely couple."

I need to mention a related term that's frequently used in the Southern States of the U.S. (but nowhere else) and that's "you all", normally abbreviated to "y'all" (but not ya'all, that's just plain wrong). Southerners use "y'all" to refer to either one person or a small group. I asked a Texan friend what they used for a large group and she said "all y'all". I don't think she was joking, but perhaps some of my Southern readers might like to confirm that.

Alot

There's not a lot I can say about this, except that it's two separate words incorrectly joined together. "That's a lot of candy" would be correct usage.

Lot's

This is a common misusage of "lots". The apostrophe is not just unnecessary, but incorrect.

"There are lots of ways to complete this task" and "Lots of people are coming to the party" are examples of correct usage.

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Grammar 101: Youse, Yous, You's, Alot, Lot's