Commonly Misused Words in Writing: They're / Their / There - Accept / Except - Its / It's
Posted: Monday, January 22, 2007
by Michelle L Devon
Accentuate Services
Yesterday, I was looking for a video to post on my blog of a particular song, and I found one on YouTube I really liked, until I watched the video, and it had the lyrics to the song typed out for the viewer to read, and this line said, "More then anything, more then anything..." and I immediately stopped viewing the video. Why?
Because I'm an editor and grammar errors like this really get on my nerves. Are you wondering what is wrong with the line above in quotes? Well, let me tell you - the correct word is THAN not THEN. You see, than is a comparison and then is a time. One is a conjunction and one is an adverb, two completely different parts of speech, but due to their similarity in pronunciation, these two words are frequently misused.
It happens to the best of us, but there are some writers out there who regularly misuse commonly misused words, and who don't seem to know the difference.
Let's look at a few commonly misused words and some information on how to remember which word to use at the right time.
There / They're / Their
I see these words used improperly all the time, and honestly, if Americans enunciated properly, these words don't sound exactly like each other when spoken, but they are close enough when the fingers move faster than the brain that these three words are commonly misused.
There references a place - a location, or a description of where something is. Where is it? It is there. This word is most commonly used as an adverb, modifying the location of the noun it references, but it can rarely be used as a noun as well.
They're is a contraction. As my article on contractions points out, a contracted word is one word, made up of two other words, with a few letters missing somewhere. An apostrophe is then added to signify the missing letters.
They're is a contraction for the two words: They and Are - the apostrophe therefore indicates the missing 'A' in the word are. Anytime you use the word they're, you should be able to replace it with the words they are and the sentence would still make sense.
For example, if you wrote this sentence: Do you want me to put this book over there on the table?
You would not be able to interchange it like this: Do you want me to put this book over they are on the table?
And lastly, their. This word is a pronoun, a possessive pronoun to be exact, and is used much the same way as his, hers, ours - theirs. This means something belongs to them, plural.
Accept / Except
This one is one of my personal pet peeves, and confuses me a bit, because honestly, the two words might sound similar, but they aren't truly pronounced the same at all. Yet I still see these commonly misused words proliferate writing, especially all over the internet.
Accept is a verb, meaning you are taking some action, to receive something. You can accept a gift, accept an answer, or accept that something is a certain way. Accept can also be used to denote approval of something.
Except is most commonly used as a preposition, and therefore usually requires a prepositional phrase to follow it. Occasionally, except can be used as a transitive verb, and perhaps this is why it is easily confused and misused, but most of the time it is a preposition used as a conjunction of some sort.
Except means to exclude something - and that is one way to remember it. EXcept and EXclude both start with EX. Accept would almost have an opposite meaning to except if it is used in this manner.
Example:I can accept all your gifts except the ring.
In this instance, the verb accept means the person is agreeing to receive some of the gifts, while the preposition except excludes the ring.
Its / It's
Again, reviewing my article on apostrophes, you will learn more about possessives and contractions. One of the reasons Its and It's are commonly misused is because they don't exactly follow the rules on possessive words. Generally, to make a word possessive, in other words, to say it belongs to someone or something, you would include an apostrophe S at the end of the word.
Its is a word that is a bit different, because it is one of the rule breakers for possessives. Because the word It's is a contraction, which is short for IT and IS, using the same word for a possessive would be confusing at best, so instead, the grammarians decided to confuse us even more and make the word ITS without the apostrophe to indicate possession.
You really don't need to know the rules on this one is you will just remember that IT'S stands for IT IS and if you can replace the word with IT IS, you need to use the apostrophe.
If you cannot replace the word with IT IS, you use the form of the word without the apostrophe as the possessive.
Example: It's important that its sentences be properly structured when writing a novel.
Try the substitution method:
It is important that it is sentences be properly structured when writing a novel.
As you can see, the first It's can be replaced with IT IS and therefore the apostrophe is correct. However, the second its cannot be replaced with it is, and is possessive for it, standing for the novel, and doesn't need the apostrophe.
There you have three commonly misused words in the English language and a few hints on how to use them properly in the future. Keep Writing!
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Top-level comments on this article: (9 total)Nice article! we really make these mistakes so often and never even realize them!
Thanks Michelle. I've missed the its and it's on occasion. Thanks for clearing that up.
can u add more because i need help
Thanks. I have been mis using the theirs for a long time. Is that one right? It's kind of tricky considering I'm using the word to possess the rest of the theres. Is that one right? I'm confused again.
Misusing I mean
A very good article
Praise the Lord for this very informative article by Michelle. It contains information we writers should know but might have forgotten along the way. As a writer, I understand how easy we misuse words and simple punctuation. I will save this article for reference. It was terrific! Good job Michelle.
Excellent job. What about effect/affect? This one confuses me at times
Wonderful article; although I disagree with the comment about Americans' annunciation (at least in the northern region, where the dialect is very particular about annunciation), it is very clean, easy-to-read article. Bravo.
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