There, Their, They’re: Prescriptive Linguistic Peeve

There, Their or They’re the question is now? Even though I am a non-native English speaker, it has been very easy to recognize that these three words are often misused and therefore this has become my linguistic pet peeve. Since these words are homophones, it is very tricky to determine which spelling fits best when used in various cases. Most native English speakers pronounce the above-mentioned homophones the same way, but each spelling means “slightly” different thing. It is very important to use them clearly in our communication either oral or written as they can convey a misleading or confusing message. People sometimes don’t realize that simply they’re misspelling them.

To shed light on the matter, it will be useful to give a clear explanation to each of the homophones. According to the dictionary:

“There” is an adverb and refers to a place;

Example: There is a library in the first building.

“They’re” is a contraction of “they are”

Example: They’re not in this building.

“Their” is the possessive pronoun;

Example: Their library is located on the next street.

Unfortunately, the common speakers don’t have very good grammar skills and make mistakes spontaneously, simply because they don’t pay attention to it or they don’t consider grammar usage as important. Therefore, we often hear such mistakes or examples in everyday speech. Oxford English Corpus (OEC) contains real examples from informal communication that was used incorrectly:

· We were their in good time, the plane was due to leave at 7.40 and we were in the airport at 5.15.

· They think there so good but there not.

· They announced their going to have another meeting in two weeks.

· They’re are big debates here in California about how to solve the problems of the deficit.

Here are some spelling hints, which can be helpful to remember easier the usage of these words:

· Their has the word heir in it, which can remind us that the term indicates possession.

· There has the word here in it. There is our choice for talking about places, whether figurative or literal.

· They’re has an apostrophe, which tells us that it is the product of two words: they & are

Now that we have described the differences above let’s try the original question:

· They’re/ Their/ There playing they’re/their/there video games over they’re/their/there.

The answer is:

· They’re playing their video games over there.