Spence 1 Dominique Spence Ms.

Jessie Carty English 1101 3 December 2013 There, Their and Theyre When it comes to grammar everyone has a topic that they hate or wish that people would finally get right. What erks me the most is the common misusage of there, their and theyre. From elementary learning to social media, everyone seems to struggle with the proper usage of these nouns. Grammar is a complex subject and something we will never be able to ignore. There, their and there are considered homophones- words that sound the same, but are completely different in meaning. Other homophones in the English grammar include except and accept and by, buy and bye. Homophones may sometimes in be spelled the same such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense for rise). These instances allow there, their and theyre to sometimes be difficult to fully understand and write with. There represents a specified or unspecified place and can also be used to show that something exists. This word indicates where something is and where it goes. There can also be used in many different parts of speech such as an adverb, pronoun, noun and adjective. There can be used as an opening of a sentence such as There is or There are. An example of the usage of there would be: Put the chair over there. or There is an apple in the kitchen. Both examples of there represent the meaning of place and being. When in doubt there is the likely form to use. Another form of this homophone is the plural possessive adjective their. Their is used to describe something that belongs to them. Their is used just like his, her, my, and your. They

Spence 2 all show possession and what belongs where. A noun typically follows their and it has no other job in the English language than as an adjective. Just like the example, The boys left their homework at school, you can see that the possession is given to the boys because the homework belongs to them. Another example would be something like, The girls left their jackets insides. This sentence shows that the jackets belong to the girls. These examples help show the relationship between a subject and their belongings or possessions. Theyre is the last homophone of the group. Theyre is the contraction of they are meaning it can only be substituted with they are. One example would be the sentence, Theyre going to soccer practice. In the sentence theyre can be substituted with they are and the sentence would still have the same meaning that it did before. In the example, They are watching television, they are can be easily substituted with theyre and would still show what the people are doing. In todays world with the internet and social media, it can be easy to type aimlessly and forget about the basic spelling and usage rules that we learned in elementary school. Many people are heckled or often corrected on social media when usage of a homophone is incorrect. The common mistake on social media sites is the usage of your and youre. If there are times of doubt or confusion on what to use where there are 3 easy steps. The first is to use substitutions whenever it is possible. Second, have a second set of eyes read something over for you before you hit the submit button. Lastly, keep a thesaurus or dictionary nearby for reference (Campbell). With all of these tips there is no reason to make homophones errors again. More than ever Americans rely greatly on autocorrect and computers to check their mistakes for them. Autocorrect is an automatic software found on Microsoft Word and many Apple products that corrects tense, spelling and capitalization errors. Autocorrect has allowed us

Spence 3 to bypass correcting ourselves and has done all the work for us. These mistakes are sometimes caused when we are in a rush or simply because we dont know how to spell or the usage of the particular word. To me, this has lead to the increase of Americans not knowing the difference or usage of there, their and theyre and other popular homophones. Eventually, children growing up in the next generation wont even have to find their errors; the computer or Iphone will do it all for them. Homophones such as there, their and there are easily confused and used incorrectly because of their same sound. These homophones have three different meanings and are commonly used in place of each other because of the lack of knowledge or the rush of typing or writing. There are many ways to remember how to use each one and eventually the usage rules will just be engraved in your mind. Autocorrect has made misusage almost impossible due to the immediate correction of a mistake whether it is typed on a phone or a computer. There, their and theyre have always been confused and they will continue to be.

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Work Cited Campbell, Kelle. "Dodging the Homophone Bullet." Kelle Campbell PR Writer. N.p., 18 Mar 2011. Web. 30 Nov 2013. <http://kcwriter.com/dodging-homophone-bullet/>. Lawless, Laura K.. "Their, There, The'yre." e Learn English Language. N.p.. Web. 27 Nov 2013. <http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/theirtheretheyre.html>. "There, Their, Theyre." Daily Writing Tips. N.p.. Web. 27 Nov 2013. <http://www.dailywritingtips.com/there-their-theyre/>.