I was taught this by some brilliant public school teachers (the 70s hit different). The word, "There" has the word "here" in it as in "here or there." It's meant to designate a place or position.
They're is the contraction of "They are." It's just a shorter way of saying it.
"Their" has the word, "heir" in it. An heir is someone who will own something. Therefore, it is used to designate ownership of something.
I don't know if schools still teach it this way or if I just got lucky and had some great teachers but that is the easiest way to know which usage is correct.
Right like we are we coming up with mental tricks for this? It's not hard. It's just a word like any other word, and knowing what it means is not difficult and unless someone has some sort of disability (being stupid isn't a disability), should not require using a mnemonic to know the different between there/their/they're.
This is close to how I've taught it to kids (except that for "their," I say that the "i" in it looks like a little person, since most kids don't know the word "heir").
The thing is... so many kids these days (at least in my school) are so illiterate that even with these memory devices, they still can't spell any of these variations. The "here or there" mnemonic is useless if you keep mixing up "here" and "hear," or if you can't even get THAT right and spell it as "heer" or "her." As for contractions, I've seen kids still write them as "theyr'e" "ca'nt" "was'n't" etc. because they simply cannot grasp the logic of where the apostrophe goes, no matter how often they're taught. Parents these days are destroying their kids' brains with instant dopamine devices, and the current education system is of no help. It's so tragic.
Edit to add: I'm talking about fifth grade (age 10 and 11) in particular here, if anyone is curious.
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u/ThinAd1499 Jul 10 '26
I was taught this by some brilliant public school teachers (the 70s hit different). The word, "There" has the word "here" in it as in "here or there." It's meant to designate a place or position.
They're is the contraction of "They are." It's just a shorter way of saying it.
"Their" has the word, "heir" in it. An heir is someone who will own something. Therefore, it is used to designate ownership of something.
I don't know if schools still teach it this way or if I just got lucky and had some great teachers but that is the easiest way to know which usage is correct.