Gateway to Grammar: There, they’re and their!

Why does the English language have three words that sound exactly the same, are spelled very similarly, and they mean totally different things? I guess English is just evil. It likes to make your day difficult.

I will help you with some stupid little memory tricks to remind you what each word means:

THERE – Look over there!

·         Take away the “t” and it says “here”

·         This is talking about distance and location!

THEY’RE – They’re funny-looking pumpkins

·         “They’re” is short for “they are”

·         The apostrophe (‘) tells you something has been removed!

THEIR – I like their googly eyes

·         I don’t have a good trick for this one! It’s just not the other 2!

·         “Their” refers to something belonging to two or more people.

Look over there! They’re pumpkins! Look at their cute googly eyes!