Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Mini-rant


I was reading a blog this morning and saw the phrase "their responsible for it..."
Honestly don't they know the proper use of they're? If they had been in my classroom they would have to write this sentence five times.

They're going to put their apples over there.

If they did it again they would do it 10 times. The kids always said it was just easier to do what I wanted - and that was one of the things. Use their, there and they're correctly please.

The following is from Wikihow:
Use there when referring to a place, whether concrete ("over there by the building") or more abstract ("it must be difficult to live there").
There is an antique store on Camden Avenue.
The science textbooks are over there on the floor.
Use their to indicate possession. It is a possessive adjective and indicates that a particular noun belongs to them.
My friends have lost their tickets.
Their things were strewn about the office haphazardly.
Remember that they're is a contraction of the words they and are. It can never be used as a modifier, only as a subject (who or what does the action) and verb (the action itself).
Hurry up! They're closing the mall at 6 tonight!
I'm glad that they're so nice to new students here.
Test your usage. When you use any of these three words, get in the habit of asking yourself these questions:
If you wrote there, will the sentence still make sense if you replace it with here? If so, you're using it correctly.
If you chose their, will the sentence still make sense if you replace it with our? If so, you've chosen the correct word.
If you used they're, will the sentence still make sense if you replace it with they are? If so, you're on the right track!

See the mistake?
Recognize incorrect examples and learn from the mistakes. By looking over others' work with a critical eye, especially by offering proofreading or copyediting help, you can become more sensitized to correct usage and practice it yourself.

And just for a little over kill"
Their is a possessive pronoun. It always describes a noun.

Note the spelling of their. It comes from the word they, so the e comes before the i.

There is an adverb meaning "that location." It is sometimes used with the verb to be as an idiom. It is spelled like here which means "this location."

They're is a contraction of they are. Note the spelling: The a from are is replaced by an apostrophe.

Examples: Their dog has fleas. (possessive of they)

I put the collar right there. (that location)

There are five prime numbers less than ten.
(with to be)

They're 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. (contraction of they are)
There now doesn't that make you feel better?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is an easy mistake to make, though. Even knowing the rule perfectly, and being terribly annoyed when I see the wrong form used, I still occasionally see it pop up on my own computer. Usually it happens when I am in a hurry, and my fingers are typing without a lot of supervision by my brain. But I believe it always gets caught if I take the time to read what I wrote before sending it out.

And now for the other really annoying mistake, the use of an apostrophe to delineate a quotation. I have lost track of how many times I have corrected a joke, replacing apostrophes with quotation marks before forwarding jokes. And yes, I have been known to correct other grammatical mistakes in jokes before I forward them. It is crazy to waste time do so? Less crazy than wasting time reading the joke in the first place, or forwarding to others. It just helps put the universe in better shape. Do people really not know better? Probably not. But I think part of it is laziness. You have to use the shift key to get to the quotation mark, while the apostrophe is right there, ready for use.

Anonymous said...

And if you look closely at the previous comment, you will see a couple examples of my typing without brain supervision, and my lack of proofreading prior to using the SEND key.

Dianne said...

how about your and you're !!
oy!!

and Don - I do the apostrophe thing at times when my finger and mind are exhausted - I will pay better attention :)

Anonymous said...

There's always my personal bête noire, "its" and "it's." That one regularly flummoxes even the most pseudo-sagacious, since the one without the apostrophe is the possessive, and the one with the apostrophe the contraction. Nonetheless, the misuse of these two just rots my socks!