Seven little words seem to be the most difficult to understand among English speakers online. It seems pointless to even write this blog post because countless others already have. As I thought about it, however, I realized my difference between series would remain incomplete without them.
Here are the 7 words that keep confusing the Internet:
- Your
- You’re
- There
- Their
- They’re
- Its
- It’s
And here they are succinctly explained:
Your vs. you’re
The easy way to remember the difference is that the apostrophe is a clue that you’re is actually two words: you are.
- Use your to talk about something owned: your car, your hot pepper, your kindness
- Use you’re to talk about someone: You’re cute. You’re a great guy. You’re amazing.
There vs. their vs. they’re
There’s that apostrophe again, so they’re is easy enough to distinguish, but there are two others remaining this time. The trick to remembering there is that there looks like here, and they mean similar things.
- Use there to refer to a location: I would not eat them here or there. I would not eat them anywhere.
- Use their to talk about something owned: their car, their hot pepper, their kindness
- Use they’re (they are) to talk about someone: They’re cute. They’re great guys. They’re amazing.
Its vs. it’s
That apostrophe keeps popping up. Perhaps there’s a pattern here.
- Use its to talk about something owned: its car, its hot pepper, its kindness
- Use it’s to talk about something: It’s hot outside. It’s a fantastic restaurant. It’s all up in your face.
That’s it. Easy as pie.
What words confuse you the most? Comment below, and we may feature them in a future blog post.