I completely forgot my weekly “Leading Geeks” post, but since I actually get more hits on this blog for the Grammar Geek posts, I figured I’d write this one.

Most of you know about the classic there/their/they’re confusion:

• There: is a pronoun that refers to a place that’s not here :).
• Their: possessive pronoun meaning something belonging to them (whoever they are).
• They’re: a contraction of “they are”.

And yet people mix them up all the time. My theory? Carelessness. I’ve actually caught my fingers typing the wrong one randomly (Fingers? Meet brain. Brain? Fingers.). If I don’t re-read my work, I sometimes find that I’ve sent an email using the wrong form!! The horror!

If you never really knew the difference, now you do. If you’re wondering why your fingers and brain occasionally disconnect, I can’t help you, but let me know if you ever figure it out (I have a theory it has something to do with habit). Just re-read before hitting send, print, or publish, and you’ll catch most of your mistakes.