Grammar Guide for Their, There, and They’re –
Spelling can be very challenging in English: very often, written words seem completely different from their spoken sounds! It gets even more confusing when completely different words, with different meanings and different spellings, somehow sound the same in spoken English.
The words there, they’re, and their are an example of this. If you have trouble with these words, you’re not alone. In fact, even native speakers often get it wrong:
The story is told about a local fast-food restaurant that wanted to share an exciting addition to the menu. On the large reader board in front of the restaurant, an enterprising employee posted in big letters:
THEIR HERE: SPICY WINGS!
Soon afterwards a customer came by and noted, “Your sign out front is misspelled. You should fix it!” The good-natured employee obliged, changing it to:
THERE HERE: SPICY WINGS!
After a few days, the customer returned. “You replaced one incorrect spelling with another!” she laughed. So the employee climbed up and changed the sign one last time:
ORDER HERE: SPICY WINGS!
Using their, there, or they’re incorrectly is a mistake that nobody wants to make. As I said earlier, part of the confusion is these three options are all homophones: words with different spellings and meanings that sound the same. With words that seem so similar, what are some ways to tell them apart?
Their
‘Their’ is a possessive determiner (sometimes called a possessive pronoun). It comes before a noun in order to show ownership. It belongs to the same family of words as things like my, your, her, his, its, and our. Here’s an example sentence:
- “My friends took pictures on their vacation to Europe.”
One clever way to remember this form is to notice the word ‘heir’ hidden inside. An heir is someone who owns something, and the word ‘their’ shows ownership within a sentence. Also, remember that there are no possessive determiners that have an apostrophe in them (not even ‘it’s,’ which is not a possessive determiner but a contraction that means ‘it is’).
There
‘There’ is an adverb (and occasionally an exclamation). It is in the same family of words as here, away, and along, because these words work together with verbs to refer to places:
- “The photos are there on the table.”
An easy way to remember is to think of ‘there’ as the opposite of ‘here’, which also refers to locations—and is spelled almost exactly the same.
They’re
‘They’re’ is actually two words, put together, which is called a contraction. Other contractions include he’s, who’d, and how’re. ‘They’re’ means ‘They are’, as in:
- “Unfortunately, they’re not very good photographers.”
The trick here is to remember that the ‘re in ‘they’re’ is actually the verb are. It represents two words, not just one. So if your sentence needs a verb, this is the right choice.
I hope remembering these rules will help you the next time you need to decide which of these homophones to use. If only that fast-food restaurant employee from the story I told earlier had read this guide!
Thanks for spending time with this Grammar Guide for Their, There, and They’re.
A great way to go deeper with these and other homophones is with Bruce Worden’s Homophones Visualized (available on Amazon)
You might also enjoy Lynn Miclea’s Grammar Tips and Tools (available on Amazon)
Finally, be sure to check out my Grammar Guide for Apostrophe Rules
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