Dangerous Homonyms A to Z
and other words that sound similar and are easily confused

A. THERE/ THEIR/ THEY'RE: one of the most dangerous of English homonyms.

Many students continue to make this academically horrible mistake, whether English is their first language or not, whether they graduated from an American high school or have even spoken English all their lives.

'There' means 'present', 'in attendance', 'at hand', 'near', or 'nearby.

This word has to do with space and time, and is used in many expressions, such as:

'There are', 'There is', 'There was', 'There were',

'Over there', 'There and back again' and

'There is more than one way to skin a cat.'

(an American idiom, meaning that there is more than one way to do things.)

You will never use the homonym 'their' in this way.

This is one of those times when I must repeat myself as loudly as possible:

DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF CONFUSING THEIR AND THERE IN FORMAL WRITING!

'Their' is a plural possessive pronoun and means 'belonging to them'.

Thus, you will never read or write the following expressions:

'Their is' or 'Their was', etc.

The last of these three homonyms is the contraction 'they're'.

'They're' means 'they are'. It never means anything else. It is the combination of the plural pronoun "they" and "are", the third person plural of the verb 'to be'.

When considering contractions, remember that they are acceptable ONLY if you use them correctly. The best advice I can give is not to use contractions UNLESS you are absolutely sure that you are using the form of the word properly.

In general, you cannot make a mistake with these words if you do not use contractions.

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