Once Upon a Time Homophones

Once upon a time there were three homophones—their, there, and they’re. They had no house in the woods, nor did they eat porridge, sit in chairs, or sleep in beds. But they were often annoyed by a nervy blonde chick (me) who treated them with reckless abandon. Hence, the reason for writing this tip.

You see, homophones sound alike (hence the name), but they have different spellings and meanings. They are often frustrated when writers, blonde or not, tend to use them incorrectly.

Their is a possessive pronoun that lays claim to nouns:

Their espresso chocolate-chunk ice cream is out of this world.

In this case, their refers not to just any ice cream maker, but to the one who makes the best ice cream. So, you understand its possessiveness.

There could care less about who possesses what. There is only interested in claiming its rightful place in the world.

Every summer afternoon, the ice cream truck stops there, on the corner of Hot and Hungry.

They’re is the contraction of the pronoun they and the verb are. The pronoun and verb like to be really close, so they join hands and become one—a contraction. But they’re not close enough to share their espresso chocolate-chunk ice cream even when they’re over there.

So there you have it.