The simple misuse of ‘there’, ‘their’ and ‘they’re’ is one of the most common, clear and costly grammar mistakes in essay writing. An experienced professor will spot incorrect usage from a glance. To avoid sounding like your work has been written by a child, a few simple mental markers can be employed to erase the problem for good.
Their
OED definition
‘Belonging to or associated with the people or things previously mentioned or easily identified’ ‘Their’ is a possessive adjective which describes a noun, and should therefore be used to indicate that ‘their’ object is ‘belonging to them’. A useful check is to replace it with ‘our’, and the sentence should still make sense (although the meaning changes). For example: The actresses believe that their costumes are pretty ‘Their’ refers to the costumes belonging to the actresses, so that ‘the actresses believe that our costumes are pretty’ will also work. The bakers have lost their herbs ‘Their’ describes the herbs, that they belong to the bakers, thus ‘the bakers have lost our herbs’ makes sense. OED definition ‘In, at, or to that place or position’ ‘Used in attracting attention to someone or something’ ‘There’ is an adverb which means ‘in that place’, or is used as a pronoun to start a sentence, often with ‘to be’, i.e. There are… There is… It should indicate a place so you can replace it with ‘here’ without loss of meaning. For example: There is the ringleader ‘There’ attracts attention to the position of the ringleader and often accompanies ‘is’ at the start of a sentence. ‘Here is the ringleader’ also makes sense. Leave the bacon there! ‘There’ means ‘in that place’; the bacon should be left in a particular position. ‘Leave the bacon here!’ is grammatically correct. OED definition Contraction of ‘they are’ ‘They’re’ is easy; it is short for ‘they are’, and as such consists of both the subject (they) and the verb (are). Replace with ‘they are’ and the sentence will make sense. For example: They’re never in the circus I hope they’re not from Scunthorpe Using ‘they are’ instead of ‘they’re’ makes the meaning clear.There
They’re
Examples
Check with these:
1: _____ Oak tree is very expensive
What replacement works here? ‘They are oak tree…’ is obviously out, so ‘here oak tree is very expensive’ or ‘our oak tree is very expensive’? The second is the only one which makes sense, where the oak tree belongs to someone; ‘their’ tree.
2: My Greek friend Constinopolous is over _____
Again, ‘My Greek friend Constinopolous is over they are’ cannot work. How about ‘My Greek friend Constinopolous is over our’? Again, nonsensical, leaving only ‘My Greek friend Constinopolous is over here’, denoting a place, ‘there’, as the correct answer.
3: I know why _____ in the corner
‘I know why our in the corner’ and ‘I know why here in the corner’ both do not give any proper meaning to the sentence. So we try ‘they’re’; ‘I know why they are in the corner’, and we have a grammatically correct sentence.
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