# Why do so many people say [write] "there" instead of their??



## RedRaiN

Hello.

I'm starting to get worry about so many people writing "there" instead of their, for example:

"Do they have guns in there country?"
"They should be working on improving there driving skills".

Is this a new craze? Or am I crazy? lol

Thanks.


----------



## Valvs

Maybe because in most, if not all, dialects of English "their" and "there" are pronounced in exactly the same way?  Do you pronounce them differently? If so, I would be curious to know how you pronounce them.


----------



## sound shift

I agree. These two words sound the same. There is only a mistake if they are transposed _in writing._


----------



## RedRaiN

Valvs said:


> Maybe because in most, if not all, dialects of English "their" and "there" are pronounced in exactly the same way?  Do you pronounce them differently? If so, I would be curious to know how you pronounce them.


 
So, are you saying that if a word is pronounced exactly the same as another they can be written the same? I don't think so, sorry.


----------



## Valvs

RedRaiN said:


> So, are you saying that if a word is pronounced exactly the same as another they can be written the same? I don't think so, sorry.



Neither do I. But you said nothing about _writing_ in your original question.


----------



## ><FISH'>

People who do that just have pathetic language skills, and that's all their is to it.


----------



## sound shift

><FISH'> said:


> People who do that just have pathetic language skills, and that's all their is to it.


----------



## Soushie

They simply don't know how to write...


----------



## Majorbloodnock

I know Fish's post was tongue in cheek but I couldn't agree more. Many native English speakers are simply lacking in inclination, understanding or education, so frequently make incredibly basic mistakes. It's all too true that, because they put in the effort to learn the language properly, many people speaking English as a second language have better grammar than a lot of native speakers.


----------



## SwissPete

You will also see _there _or _their _for _they're_.


----------



## Novanas

SwissPete said:


> You will also see _there _or _their _for _they're_.


 
Yes, "they're", "there" and "their" are often confused, as are "your" and "you're".  How many times have I seen "Your welcome", to which I always reply, "My what?"


----------



## sound shift

In this country, a lot of people leave school semi-literate. I think that is the main reason for this type of mistake.


----------



## Hermione Golightly

They're either semi- literate or like me, being "absent minded". _Of course,_ if a word sounds the same it is very likely to be spelt wrongly, for either reason! If I am thinking very hard about the content, I often make basic spelling mistakes, confusing words that sound the same or very similar. At my age I often struggle to find the right word as my brain produces something that sounds a bit the same but I know it is the wrong word.

  It's a  neurological wonder anybody spells English properly. There may be relatively little grammar, but if you only knew the amount of time that has to be spent learning to spell correctly especially if the learner has learning problems like dyslexia.  

Thousands of people are writing on-line these days who might never have lifted pen to paper in the not too distant past. Of course it is also a question of intelligence, interest and caring. If you can't understand why there are the differences you will never get it right.

I am often struck how many easily avoidable or plain careless mistakes learners make on this forum because they haven't taken the trouble to carefully edit their work.

I can only speak for myself, but I have to edit my posts several times in every respect, not counting simple typos, and often see some sort of mistake or something unsatisfactory when I read it later.  

 RedRaiN - You have what I call a basic grammar mistake in your post, rather surprisingly given your apparent general fluency.


> I'm starting to get worry about



Hermione


----------



## Loob

Hi RedRaiN

I would answer your question "why?" by saying that I think this sort of mistake is natural for anyone who has learnt to speak a language before learning to write it. It's similar to native Spanish speakers mixing up "b" and "v" in writing: second-language learners of Spanish don't do it, because they have probably seen words written before they've heard them spoken.

Personally, I find it quite easy to write "there" instead of "their". I usually notice that I've done so if I'm not tired or distracted. But I'm a terrible proof-reader of my own stuff, as I know what I intended to write. So some errors are bound to slip through.


----------



## Myridon

When touch typing (or writing by hand), I am not conciously telling my fingers which keys to hit (or which strokes to draw).  I think "their" and my fingers decide all on their own to produce "there".


----------



## Loob

Myridon said:


> When touch typing (or writing by hand), I am not conciously telling my fingers which keys to hit (or which strokes to draw). I think "their" and my fingers decide all on their own to produce "there".


 Yes!!


----------



## JulianStuart

I'm with Hermione  and Myridon , with decaying connections between brain and fingers - I'm lucky if I don't type it ither or tiher or some other wrong order version a couple of times before getting it write


----------



## Packard

><FISH'> said:


> People who do that just have pathetic language skills, and that's all their is to it.


 
Your sure about that?


----------



## relic5.2

I find it happens to me all the time when typing now, but I usually spot it halfway through... I haven't started to write it though with a pen and a paper, but give me some time and my writing will be like that Spellcheck poem.


----------



## SwissPete

Being blessed with a better-than-average visual memory, I tend to avoid the misteaks mistakes listed above. But I came to realize some time ago that spelling and intelligence have very little in common. A good friend of mine is brillant, but can't spell worth a damn.


----------



## Kareem1972

Valvs said:


> Maybe because in most, if not all, dialects of English "their" and "there" are pronounced in exactly the same way?  Do you pronounce them differently? If so, I would be curious to know how you pronounce them.




What????????????? They are different words and pronounced differently. Where did you hear them being spoken the same way?


----------



## JulianStuart

Kareem1972 said:


> What????????????? They are different words and pronounced differently. Where did you hear them being spoken the same way?



In what way would you pronounce them differently?  How about "they're"?


----------



## Kareem1972

JulianStuart said:


> In what way would you pronounce them differently?  How about "they're"?



The question wasn't about "they're"

but about "there" and "their", or cant you see any difference?


----------



## JulianStuart

> Originally Posted by *JulianStuart*
> In what way would you pronounce them differently?  How about "they're"?





Kareem1972 said:


> The question wasn't about "they're"
> 
> but about "there" and "their", or cant you see any difference?


When I wrote them, I was referring to "there" and "their".  I _also_ asked about "they're" because I pronounce it the same as there and their.

I would like to know if you think the three words are pronounced the same.  If not, please explain how you would pronounce them differently.
Thanks.


----------



## ><FISH'>

Kareem1972 said:


> What????????????? They are different words and pronounced differently. Where did you hear them being spoken the same way?


Just about everyone pronounces them the same. They both have a generic "ther" sound. Even if you wanted to make them sound different, you couldn't do so without making it sound unnatural. The only way I can see making them completely distinguishable from one another would be to pronounce "Their" as "The-ir", but this would sound unnatural to the point of comedy. No native speaker would ever do such a thing.


----------



## Eliza_vn88

I wonder that do the native speakers often to write wrong words??? 

I'm a "new fish" in this forum, I really like it, the forum will help me a lot, i can speak but my writting skill is not good.


----------



## St. Nick

Packard said:


> Your sure about that?


More sure then you.


----------



## Novanas

I agree wholeheartedly with SwissPete.  There's no connection between intelligence and being a good speller.  Even relatively good spellers make mistakes. 

English spelling is one of my pet peeves.  So many words in our language are spelled totally illogically.  I'm one of those who favors a total reform of spelling.  But no point in getting off on that, because people have been arguing about that for a long time now to no purpose.  Maybe it'll happen some day, but it won't be any time soon.


----------



## Majorbloodnock

Seneca the Duck said:


> I agree wholeheartedly with SwissPete. There's no connection between intelligence and being a good speller. Even relatively good spellers make mistakes.


I agree too. Perfect grammar and spelling don't mean that what one has to say is worth hearing either. 



> English spelling is one of my pet peeves. *So many words in our language are spelled totally illogically*. I'm one of those who favors a total reform of spelling. But no point in getting off on that, because people have been arguing about that for a long time now to no purpose. Maybe it'll happen some day, but it won't be any time soon.


Agree once again. There's a somewhat cruel irony that "phonetic" is spelt with a "ph".


----------



## Gwan

While seeing routine confusion between you're/your, there/their/they're and its/it's (among others that I can't think of, probably) is like nails on a chalkboard to me, I agree with whoever said that we're simply seeing more people writing than ever before. A relative who routinely commits these spelling crimes on facebook springs to mind - she's in her 70s, and has been a full-time mother/retired as long as I have been on this earth, I believe she worked in shops and factories and the like when she was younger. So, after school, this is probably the most productive she's ever been in terms of writing output in her life, thus it's unsurprising that she would make these sorts of mistakes. That sounds awfully patronising, but I suppose if you do stop to think about it in that light, perhaps we can all be a little bit more spelling-tolerant...


----------



## Hermione Golightly

Loob makes a good point.

This is from one of the poems about the horrors of English pronunciation/spelling:

A dreadful Language? Why man alive! *
I'd learned to talk when I was five. 
And yet to write , the more I tried, 
I hadn't learned  at fifty-five.

* This is just a form of exclamation.

There's a very good reason why _there_, _their_, and _they_ +'re are so obviously often confused - they are all in the top 50 most often used words, according to 3 lists,except that in one list _they_ appears at #53.  I wouldn't be surprised if there are some small pockets of strong regional variations in the UK where _they're_ is pronounced very slightly differently from the other two, with  _they_ more distinct, but that would be the exception. I am happy to say that everybody pronounces them in exactly the same way. ('Them' means the three words in question, since there seems to be some misunderstanding floating around - I am not saying that the word 'them' is pronounced like 'there'!) 


I have no doubt that standards are lower these days.
I  learnt to spell  in the dark ages of education, by the same method used to teach everything in those days at this barbaric school -terrorisation. We had ten words to learn each night and got tested on them the next morning with a Grand Test on Fridays. The words were grouped in various phonetic ways, same sound and same spelling, same spelling  and different sounds. Then came the endless sentences with gaps to be filled with homophones. These were also vocabulary exercises. The terror came into it because if you made too many mistakes you got hit with a leather strap, girls on the hand they didn't write with and boys twice across the back of the legs.

However, many adults are writing far more than they ever used to, online. Given all the other distractions these days it is perhaps surprising that standards aren't worse.

Another very common and understandable slip up is between _your _and _you're_, which Packard referred to. I think I usually make the mistake of writing _your_ when I mean _you're_ and I'd say that is the most common error. This makes sense: writing _you're _requires some deliberation. 
I suspect the same is true for writing _they're,_ so the most likely confusion is between _their_ and _there_. I mean it is unlikely that anybody would write _you're_ instead of _your _or _they're_ instead of _there _or _their, _because the simpler spelling wins out.

 But not the other way round.  I'd say I most often confuse _their_ and _there_, but I don't know which way round I tend to do it.

Hermione  

I forgot to say I do not make these mistakes when handwriting. It's something to do with typing, which I only started when I was 55.

I also forgot to mention the pronunciation verses, the best of which is "Dearest creature in creation...." although there are several others if you google for them. Many have the spoken version too, which is essential if you are a learner.

http://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/pronunciationpoem.html


----------



## Kareem1972

JulianStuart said:


> When I wrote them, I was referring to "there" and "their".  I _also_ asked about "they're" because I pronounce it the same as there and their.
> 
> I would like to know if you think the three words are pronounced the same.  If not, please explain how you would pronounce them differently.
> Thanks.



"they're" and "their" are pronounce the same way, or nearly the same ( however I know there should difference  )
But this is not the case with "there", for me and people I know "y" or "i" are rather obvious to say, how can you miss it?

I have read on other forum about this strange problem and honestly, I don't understand how those words can be said the same way.


----------



## Kareem1972

><FISH'> said:


> Just about everyone pronounces them the same. They both have a generic "ther" sound. Even if you wanted to make them sound different, you couldn't do so without making it sound unnatural. The only way I can see making them completely distinguishable from one another would be to pronounce "Their" as "The-ir", but this would sound unnatural to the point of comedy. No native speaker would ever do such a thing.




In a sentence:

"There are their cars over there. ". Will you say all the words the same way?


----------



## Loob

Kareem, all the native English speakers in this thread are telling you that "there" and "their" are pronounced in exactly the same way. If you pronounce them differently, then I'm afraid you're making a mistake.


Kareem1972 said:


> In a sentence:
> 
> "There are their cars over there. ". Will you say all the words the same way?


Yes - all the words I've highlighted in blue are pronounced identically.

PS: Try listening to the pronunciations given in the Dictionary for their and there....


----------



## Packard

Also note that if you become over-dependent on your spell checker it will not help in this case; both are spelled correctly--one is the wrong word.


----------



## I&M

I think you're talking about the "chat language" where most people for example usually use forms like "your" instead of "you're", "em" instead of "them" etc..They are short forms to write quickly..and mistakes "purposely made" if we can say like this!!


----------



## Kareem1972

Loob said:


> Kareem, all the native English speakers in this thread are telling you that "there" and "their" are pronounced in exactly the same way. If you pronounce them differently, then I'm afraid you're making a mistake.
> 
> Yes - all the words I've highlighted in blue are pronounced identically.



My dear, who told you that majority is always right? 

I am not saying people don't do this, my point is: it is not correct. Besides native speakers I know do say those words differently


----------



## Loob

I&M said:


> I think you're talking about the "chat language" where most people for example usually use forms like "your" instead of "you're", "em" instead of "them" etc..They are short forms to write quickly..and mistakes "purposely made" if we can say like this!!


No, we're talking about _mistakes_ often made in writing by native speakers of English. I don't think people often deliberately write "there" for "their" or "your" for "you're" as chatspeak - after all, "there" is one letter longer than "their" - and "ur" is much shorter than either "your" or "you're" ....


----------



## cyberpedant

Indeed, Kareem. You are making a mistake common to many in assuming that written language _determines _pronunciation, when it is _symbolic_ of pronunciation. In other words, _speech _comes first. As Loob and our other colleagues have pointed out, _their_, _there _and _they're _are symbols of _exactly _the same set of phonemes. The different spellings may be useful for disambiguation in writing, but they represent absolutely no difference in spoken language.


----------



## Novanas

Kareem, why insist?  Why try to tell us how we pronouce our words?  The day will never come when English-speakers try to tell Poles how to pronounce theirs (there's, they'res, thairs, thayers?)

I remember the old days when Lech Walesa was first in the news.  News people tried to tell us exactly how his name was pronounced, but none of them could agree on it, and none of us could pronounce any of the options given us anyway.  So we didn't make a big deal of it.


----------



## Majorbloodnock

OK, all sorts of misunderstandings are coming thick and fast here.

Firstly, Kareem1972. Perhaps it is because your native language is Polish that it's difficult to comprehend how these different spellings could sound the same. However, please believe Packard, Fish and the others; when English is spoken by native speakers, no matter which dialect, "there", "their" and "they're" are pronounced exactly the same. There is no subtle emphasising of any letters; the sound is precisely, absolutely, utterly and completely identical. Any attempt to do otherwise would sound odd to a native ear.

I&M, I know what you're talking about, and chat language has certainly injected another level of confusion. However, in this sense, we're not talking about chat language at all. If someone wanted to say "your" or "you're" in the fewest letters, the common chat language form is "ur". Mixing "your" and "you're" is simply the result of laziness, ignorance, carelessness or plain honest mistake. Nonetheless, you're quite right that, since chat language has gained a certain acceptance, quite a few people use it as a legitimate excuse to, as you say, purposely misspell certain words, and this causes as many comprehension problems amongst native speakers as it does for everyone else.


----------



## Chaf

This careless way of writing doesn't only happen in English, but is Spanish (I'm a native speaker-writer of this language) as well (I'm sure of it) as in most -if not all- the other languages.

The main reason, I think, is just careless learners/writers who may have been corrected many times and they just simply disregard the correction. I also think that the fast pace in "texting" and the small and rather uncomfortable keyboard also makes texters to develop new shortcuts to words that become so ingrained that are eventually transferred to a more formal writing setting.

Chaf


----------



## Packard

This sort of sloppiness is just the reason that WordReference exists.  Now that it has been drummed into your head for 43 posts you probably won't make that mistake.  And others will have gained too.

The other common mistakes of your/you're/yore and to/too/two will crop up with equal frequency.

Master them all.

*Where two smart too listen too there mistakes; yore to.*


----------



## timpeac

I think you're all being a bit harsh on those who occasionally mix up "they're" "their" etc.

Because these words are pronounced exactly the same it is easy (or at least it is easy for me) to accidentally write one for the other when I am typing. I do it all the time - thank goodness for the "edit" feature on the posts! (I've also been known to write "right" for "write" etc and many other permutations of homophones with different spellings).

Although I'm sure that many people do it because they really couldn't care less if they write the wrong spelling - and maybe because their education is insufficient to fully understand the difference - but when I do it it is just through inattention, because ultimately language is a spoken language and my brain is converting the correct sound to the wrong spelling _for that context_.

Just to be clear - I'm not saying it's acceptable (I've been known to leap out of bed to go and edit a typo before now!) just that it is not necessarily through not caring or stupidity. I wonder if some brains function better at distinguishing a lack of one-to-one correspondence between the spelling and the pronunciation than others.

Hypothesis - I wonder if foreign speakers with a good grasp of English might actually find it easier to remember to write the correct written form of a homophone than native speakers since they've had to learn these words also as a translation of a different word each in their own language, whereas for a native speaker they are - in spoken form - identical.


----------



## Loob

timpeac said:


> I think you're all being a bit harsh on those who occasionally mix up "they're" "their" etc.


I think all's just a _teensy_ exaggeration, Tim: several of us have said we commit this particular sin...


----------



## Cagey

I think timpeac is onto something. Some people have a better visual memory for how words look on a page.   Other people have a better audial memory, and "hear" the words they type.  People who rely more on audial memory are likely to misspell homophones.


----------



## Chaf

timpeac, you are right and wrong. Let me explain. 

Most of us are writing about the careless writer, and not the "occasional mix up," which we all do some time or another. If somebody writes publicly, this' meant to be read, ponder about, accepted, rejected, commented, etc. If we have diverse opinions, that's fine, but it should -as much as we can- be written properly. If we don't want to be "criticized" or corrected, we should no write publicly, or we should be more careful when doing it, which is what I was striving for when I posted my first reply to this thread.


----------



## timpeac

Loob said:


> I think all's just a _teensy_ exaggeration, Tim: several of us have said we commit this particular sin...


 Ok mea culpa - "all" is a bit harsh. But rereading the thread, whether people admit to commiting this sin or not the general opinion seems to be that this is careless or sloppy. I find that a bit harsh because - from a personal point of view - I find it so hard that I have to effectively have a warning bell that rings whenever I need to write one of these "danger" words or it is not unlikely I'll spell it wrong. I usually find it easier to write at speed and then reread what I've written and correct (and can sometimes miss them even then). In other words it's not because I don't _care_ but because I find it so difficult!


----------



## timpeac

Chaf said:


> timpeac, you are right and wrong. Let me explain.
> 
> Most of us are writing about the careless writer, and not the "occasional mix up," which we all do some time or another. If somebody writes publicly, this' meant to be read, ponder about, accepted, rejected, commented, etc. If we have diverse opinions, that's fine, but it should -as much as we can- be written properly. If we don't want to be "criticized" or corrected, we should no write publicly, or we should be more careful when doing it, which is what I was striving for when I posted my first reply to this thread.


I don't disagree that many, many, people writing on the internet either don't really know the difference and couldn't care less either. On many sites it seems completely random how someone will spell "there"/"their" and does not relate to the sense at all.

However, the original question related to all people misspelling such words - and since I have such a difficulty with it I am keen to explain that many people understand the difference very well, care about the difference, and don't want to look stupid by getting it wrong - and yet still they may well make more than an occasional error in this regard.


----------



## Packard

I think a lot has to do with how you learned the language. Did you learn the language in the classroom using a textbook and having a teacher? Or did you learn it on the street like many turn-of-the-last-century immigrants did?

If it is the second way, then good grammar and spelling are going to be a challenge.

I think the greater majority here have had the benefit of the classroom.


----------



## Loob

I think you and Cagey are right, Tim: this is more difficult for some people than for others - and possibly more difficult for some people in particular situations than in others. I imagine that that just as people have different learning styles (visual, aural, kinaesthetic etc) they also have different 'remembering' styles. I find I'm much more likely to mix up homophones when I'm typing than when I'm handwriting: I think I miss the kinaesthetic memory of how the words 'feel'.


----------



## ><FISH'>

Packard said:


> I think a lot has to do with how you learned the language. Did you learn the language in the classroom using a textbook and having a teacher? Or did you learn it on the street like many turn-of-the-last-century immigrants did?
> 
> If it is the second way, then good grammar and spelling are going to be a challenge.
> 
> I think the greater majority here have had the benefit of the classroom.


Classrooms and teachers don't guarantee a good knowledge of the language. I was given the exact same education as my peers, perhaps even less, yet all of them have consistently had feeble language skills throughout the years. I learned English through reading, books, internet, subtitles, etc. Formal education doesn't even make up 10% of most peoples language skills, in my opinion. I know several people who had little to no education in English, yet they've learned it to a level of fluency that I rarely see in my own Anglophone country, just through the internet. It seems like most kids today would rather learn from the latest rap lyrics or something equally horrifying.

Barring the occasionally slip of the keyboard (sometimes it feels like the fingers have a mind of their own), I firmly believe based on observations that it is a matter of pure laziness and uncaring for communication or language that these mistakes are made. It does (EDIT: NOT) make someone a bad person, I'm not saying that, but it does show that they don't prioritize communication very much. Considering how pretty much everything in life relies on communication, you'd think people would take it more seriously.

Regarding shorthand, I think it's nothing short of mutilation and the purest expression of disregard for language, class, or dignity. I think English is the worst offender of shorthand, as I don't think I've seen it in any other language. The most I've seen Polish-speakers do is spell without using the national characters (ąćęłńóżź) sometimes.



Kareem1972 said:


> "they're" and "their" are pronounce the same  way, or nearly the same ( however I know there should difference  )
> But this is not the case with "there", for me and people I know "y" or "i" are rather obvious to say, how can you miss it?
> 
> I have read on other forum about this strange problem and honestly, I  don't understand how those words can be said the same way.


Kareem, I suspect that it is because you are Polish that you think these words are pronounced differently. Perhaps your teacher of English was also Polish. You should remember that English is not as linear as Polish with pronunciation, and it does often border on the illogical. Believe me, if you say them differently to a native speaker, they will know it's wrong. However they probably wouldn't correct you without prompting because they'll just assume it's an accent thing. There are so many accents and dialects in English now, from native to foreign, that the native Anglophone barely even registers foreign sounds anymore.


----------



## envie de voyager

Kareem1972 said:


> My dear, who told you that majority is always right?
> 
> I am not saying people don't do this, my point is: it is not correct. Besides native speakers I know do say those words differently


 
If Kareem insists on pronouncing _there, their and they're_ differently, then that is perfectly all right.  That is called _speaking with an accent.  _Many non-native speakers never lose their accents no matter how hard they try.


----------



## JulianStuart

envie de voyager said:


> If Kareem insists on pronouncing _there, their and they're_ differently, then that is perfectly all right.  That is called _speaking with an accent.  _Many non-native speakers never lose their accents no matter how hard they try.



I have no issue with that position.  I'm more curious on how those differences are actually manifested.

I've been in the US for 30 years and still have an "English" accent


----------



## envie de voyager

From what I've read, if you are less than twelve years old when you begin to learn a language (by immersion), then you are likely to end up speaking like a native. Every year older than twelve that you are when you begin the process makes it that much more difficult (but not impossible) to learn to sound like a native. It has to do with how the juvenile brain is wired to learn language.


----------



## boozer

Ha, I can vividly imagine being berated by a foreign learner of my language for making similar mistakes. As a young boy I would never have thought a teacher of mine (Englishman) could misspell this or that word. And when that happened and we pointed it out to him, the poor fellow would get so embarrassed. After 25 years of conscious effort, however, my English spelling has got better than my Bulgarian one and I am just as likely to make mistakes similar to the ones he once made in his language. That is because I've never cared much about my own language - it is mine after all  I know it's not commendable but it's a fact. 

So now, when I see _there _used instead of _their_ or _they're_, I just smile and go on. I simply know all too well the spirit behind such errors.


----------

