[General] Correct their or there?

[SquishyBC]

So I am just here to ask if I have used the correct 'there, their' in a sentence. My s/o says that I have used the wrong one but I strongly feel that I have not. So the sentence is, "There should be a 'y' at the end of that word." He thinks that I should have used 'their'. Which is correct?

 

[emsr2d2]

Welcome to the forum. :hi:

You are correct. "Their" means "belonging to them".

What is an "s/o"?

 

[Rover_KE]

Hello, SquishyBC.:-D

Please note that there was no earthly reason to use 'So' at the beginning of two of your sentences.

 

[Skrej]

He thinks that I should have used 'their'.

To further elaborate on the answer in post #2, this means that using 'their' (a possessive adjective) requires you to follow it with some kind of noun to indicate who possesses what - 'their money', 'their dog', 'their lives', etc.

What is an "s/o"?

"significant other"

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

[STRIKE]So[/STRIKE] I am just here to ask if I have used the correct 'there, their' in a sentence. My significant other says that I have used the wrong one, but I strongly feel that I have not. [STRIKE]So[/STRIKE] The sentence is, "There should be a 'y' at the end of that word." He thinks that I should have used 'their'. Which is correct?

You're right. He's wrong. Their is a possessive pronoun.

Tell him to look up there, their, and they're. And it's his turn to do the dishes.

 

[Skrej]

Their is a possessive pronoun

Actually, it's a possessive adjective. The possessive pronoun is 'theirs', with an 's'.

That is their car. (poss. adj.)
That car is theirs. (poss. pron.)

But yes, it's a toss-up on whether I see more they're/there/their errors or your/you're/yore errors.

 

[Raymott]

Please note that there was no earthly reason to use 'So' at the beginning of two of your sentences.

There's no earthly reason for answers to interviews on TV to begin with "So" either. I've only noticed it in the last few years. Does anyone know the origin?

 

[emsr2d2]

There's no earthly reason for answers to interviews on TV to begin with "So" either. I've only noticed it in the last few years. Does anyone know the origin?

Anyone who's interested in this can read a bit more HERE.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Anyone who's interested in this can read a bit more HERE.

That's funny! I always call it NPR-speak.

I've been hearing So everywhere for the past five or ten years, and it's still annoying. It's part of a whole emerging middle-class professional lexicon that includes narrative, multiple, reach out, weaponized, takeaway, walk back, and push back. I'm sure you all can add some more.

The best thing about retirement is that I don't have to hang around with people who talk like that anymore. (Unless I turn on the radio.)

The most difficult part of the shift was the candy-coating of everything. One example: I used to lead evaluations of events, using a two-column plus/minus chart. The good things that happened went of the plus side, the bad things on the minus.

Then I got corrected. Plus/minus is out, plus/delta is in. Delta means change. The things in the delta column are things to change. We don't call deltas minuses because that would hurt their feelings.

More extreme: We used to say, "I disagree." But then (as if "I want to push back a little" weren't soft enough) I started hearing "I honor your wisdom."

Ouch!

 

[Raymott]

Anyone who's interested in this can read a bit more HERE.

"Starting sentences with "so" isn't a trend or a thing. However it may strike you, people aren't doing it any more frequently than they were 50 or 100 years ago."
I believe the blogger is wrong. This is definitely not something people used to do in interviews. Of course people begin some sentences with "so", but he's given examples that are not the subject of the complaint.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Anyone who's interested in this can read a bit more HERE.

Nunberg is citing numbers that minimize the incidence.

Listen to a few NPR interviews. Keep count how many questions the interviewer asks, and track how many answers begin with "So," "Right, so," and "Yeah, so." It's often frequent, sometimes more than half. You can also keep score of how many of the interviewees do and don't do it. Again, it's a lot (and on some segments most) of them.

So, as I say: Grr.

 

[emsr2d2]

SquishyBC, are you still here? Have you read any of our responses? If so, we would appreciate at least a comment on our help, or a click on the "Like" and "Thank" buttons. Perhaps you are very busy looking smugly at your "s/o" and singing "I told you so!" ;-)