I am posting this for a friend of mine. About 30 minutes ago, on some Social Networking site, she posted, "they're, their, there
They all have different meanings/uses. Figure it out. It's not hard."
As per usual, I had another post ready to put up, which will now have to wait.
Like Your / You're, this should be fairly obvious to any native speaker of our lovely language. However, for some reason, it isn't.
I will present the rules of these three words.
There = A place / direction.
Their = Possessive
They're = They are
These are pretty simple. Being so similar to my other post, we'll start by covering the bottom two.
Remember that the "re" in "They're" is the word "are" with the "a" removed.
If one can replace "They're" with "They are" in a sentence, well, you have your answer.
It's that simple.
For example: "They're getting the facts right."
That means: "They are getting the facts right."
Alternatively: "Their facts are right."
That means: "The facts belonging to those people are correct."
When one of these is used in place of the other the confusion is unavoidable.
Let's approach the last one.
"There"
It can be used in a multitude of ways. All in all it translates to a direction or place.
For example: "Put it there."
That means: "Put this object in that place."
For example: "There is a person."
That means: "A person exists in that direction."
For example: "YOU THERE!"
That means: "You… person at whom I am looking… in that place / direction."
There are many ways to improve their grammar. They're just going to have to pay attention.
dear cunning grammarian, it's been quite a few months since you postponed the post that you postponed to write this post, which you decided not to postpone, because, at the time, it was relevant. that said, will you now post that post - the one you did not post last December?
ReplyDeleteand a request: would you also consider a future post on the elusive 'm-dash'? I've been an over-user myself for years, but I'm trying to quit. any tips?