Their or There?
 

Quote from the OED [with my comments in square brackets]:

"Do not confuse their and there:

their is a possessive determiner, used for example in they all tried to hide their faces and said nothing, [Air Force Board?]

while there is an adverb of place or position, as in I took a trip up there last week, and is used in phrases such as there is/are: we are aware there are problems [but we won't do anything].

On the use of their in the singular to mean ‘his or her’, see they (usage)."

The grammar applies, whatever time of night it is, but is often affected by alcohol.

Rgds SOS

I fully support your stance against the growing trend towards generally crap use of English but (at the risk of becoming a victim inattention) I can identify cases where the bloody MS Spellchecker has stabbed people in the back. Anyway, good luck on raising attention to this most irritating point.

G-B-Z
 

If you rite "cat" wen you meen "dog" the spell checker won't pick it up!

Rgds SOS

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.


Nothing is better than the human brain... except most of the humans who seem to lack one... :ugh:

Smart buggers. :D

SOSL

You must frown when you read my posts, this is the one thing
in the English language I had problems with and although I
think I have got better, when I go back and read the odd post
I see mistakes.

A point well raised. There, their and (may I add) they're.

We could also add 'sat and sitting' or 'less and fewer'.

Whoever wrote this article doesn't know what there talking about. Is their any point to it? They're doesn't seem to be.

When do we get to, 'i before e, except after c'.

I've never understood the science behind that one :E

Don't even get me started. Pprune is probably one of the better forums (fora!) for decent spelling and grammar. Some of the aircraft sites are horrifying.

I think the most amusing faux pas of recent days was on Matthew Wright's TV show on Channel 5. They ran a story about keeping kids at school longer so they might learn how to read and write (imagine) and the caption they ran throughout the show read "... kids at school till sixteen" (or words to that effect. Brilliant stuff, you couldn't make it up :)

Spell checkers can be a pain..... the one connected to DII forever tried to change my signature block from "Flt Lt" to "Fat Lt", but probably with good reason.

Predictive texting is a pain.

I got a text on my phone from a female friend : Please ball me as soon as you can I will be good.
I was disappointed to find out that it was meant to say : Please call me as soon as you can I will be home.

I've red owl through this during a break from digging a deep drainage sough in Slough, which makes me cough, and I bough to those with a better knowledge of grandma than what I have got.

I before E except after C, or something.....
 

Sid, here is the kind of stuff that makes it difficult.

beige, codeine, conscience, deify, deity, deign, eider, eight, either, feign, feint, feisty, foreign, forfeit, freight, heifer, heigh-ho, height, heinous, heir, heist, neigh, neighbour, neither, peignoir, prescient, rein, science, seine, seismic, seize, sheik, society, sovereign, surfeit, veil, vein, weight, weir, weird.

They're not the only variations.......

And confusion is why we have Port and probably why the Titanic hit the iceberg.

That Damned Ship's Wheel!

airpolice, did you actually reid my post :ugh:

Your and you're are often confused too. So is to and too!

I ignore the corrections made by SC which refer to American spelling,
ie favor ect.

Sat and sitting is a lost cause, I'm afraid. I now find myself thinking "was that correct?" when I say "I was sitting/standing" as I hear "I was sat/stood" so often.

I think "fewer" is making a comeback, though, eg supermarkets having checkouts marked "five items or fewer".