Pronunciation: [ðe͡ɪˈə] (IPA)
The word "they're" is a contraction of "they are", which is commonly used in English language. It is spelled as t-h-e-y-apostrophe-r-e. The pronunciation of this word is /ðɛər/, where "th" is pronounced as a voiced dental fricative, like the "th" in "the", "ɛə" represents the sound of a diphthong, and "r" is pronounced as an alveolar approximant. The apostrophe serves to replace the letter "a" in "are" and should not be confused with the possessive form, "their".
"They're" is a contraction of the words "they" and "are," forming a commonly used English contraction. It is an example of the plural third-person pronoun "they" being combined with the present tense form of the verb "to be" in its third-person plural form "are." The contraction "they're" is primarily used as a subject or main verb in a sentence, where it represents a group of people or things.
The contraction "they're" is typically employed in situations where one wants to express a plural subject or group's action or state of being. It is often used when referring to multiple people or objects that are performing an activity, possess certain characteristics, or exist in a particular state. For instance, in the sentence "They're going to the park," "they're" signifies that a group of people is planning or currently engaged in a visit to the park.
While "they're" is used to represent the plural third-person pronoun "they" with the present tense form "are," it should not be confused with the homophonic words "their" or "there." "Their" is a possessive adjective, indicating ownership by a group, and "there" is an adverb indicating a location or existence. The use of "they're" instead of "they are" makes sentences more concise and fluid, contributing to clearer and more efficient communication.
* The statistics data for these misspellings percentages are collected from over 15,411,110 spell check sessions on www.spellchecker.net from Jan 2010 - Jun 2012.
The word "they're" is a contraction of the words "they" and "are". It is used to refer to a group of people, animals, or things, and indicate that this group is currently in a state of being or doing something.
The individual words have their own separate origins:
1. "They" originated from the Old Norse word "their", which means "those" or "them".
2. "Are" comes from the Old English word "eart" (second person singular present of "beon"), which later evolved into "are" to represent the second person plural and third person forms of the verb "be".
The contraction "they're" emerged over time as a convenient way to combine the pronoun "they" with the auxiliary verb "are" to create a shortened form that is commonly used in spoken and written English today.