“Their,” “there,” and “they’re” are:
To sum up: We’re screwed.
I’m kidding. Let’s take about three minutes to rewire your brain so you never struggle with using “their,” “there,” and “they’re” correctly again.
How to Use and Spell “Their”
“Their” is a possessive pronoun. A pronoun is just a replacement word for the name of something. Instead of “Billy and Betty,” we say “they.” And if something belongs to Billy and Betty, we use the word “their” before it, instead of “Billy and Betty’s.”
How to Use and Spell “There”
“There” is all over the place, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively. In other words: It can be used to mean many things and in many different ways in a sentence. It’s most commonly used to refer to a place. And it’s sometimes an idiom used to comfort a person, as in, “There, there, don’t cry just because you spelled ‘there’ wrong for the twentieth time in a row.”
How to Use and Spell “They’re”
“They’re” is like “can’t”—a mashup of two words (“they” and “are”), with one or more letters pulled out so we can save .0034 seconds while we speak. The high-flying comma, or apostrophe, is used to indicate the missing letters/mashup.
Does that clear things up?
If you have specific questions about the usage of “their,” “there,” and “they’re,” we’re happy to help! Comment below. And feel free to share the most hilarious misspellings you’ve seen of “their,” “there,” and “they’re” with us.
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