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I have a question about two phrases:

  • You're in lucky
  • You're lucky

What's the difference between these sentences?

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    Lucky is an adjective, which ordinarily can't be the object of a preposition, so we don't say You are in lucky-- we use the noun luck--You are in luck!
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Mar 28, 2017 at 17:01

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As StoneyB pointed out in his comment, 'You're in lucky' isn't correct, it would be just 'You're in luck.'

I don't know that I can provide a 100% accurate distinction between the two, but from thinking about it I believe that saying 'You're lucky' generally refers to either your overall luck (you've had a number of lucky encounters) or simply you had something lucky happen to you at some point in the past, even potentially the immediate past. As in, maybe you just got two Blackjacks in a row and your friend says 'Wow, you're lucky!'

Saying 'You're in luck' is usually referring to something relevant to right now, as in, it's still happening. I can't think of a better way to phrase that, so I'll just give an example:

Say you're looking for some old, obscure video game from like 20 years ago. You go into a game store and ask about it. The manager says 'You're in luck! We actually have one in stock!'. In this case, you are currently in the process of having luck because they have the game. Then, after you get home and show your friend, he may say 'Man, you're lucky they had it!'

Not sure I articulated everything I meant quite right, but I hope this is helpful to some extent.

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