This blog has been active for more than three years now. And I would have bet that, in the 650 posts since we launched back in February 2010, we’d covered pretty much all the grammar issues that matter.
But that was before Shirlee told me that people don’t know the difference between their, they’re, and there. After expressing my disbelief, Melanie—in a show of solidarity with her fellow designer—said, “Have you seen Facebook?”
I’m not one to venture too far into the fetid fever swamps of social media, so I’ll just take her word for it.
So, for the record, here’s how it all shakes out:
Their is a possessive pronoun—like his, her, and our. “She’s their daughter.”
They’re is always a contraction of they are—and nothing more. “They’re her parents.”
There is what you use for everything else. “There goes the neighborhood.”
It’s really quite simple, isn’t it? So there’s really no excuse for mixing these up.
