I believe what is being said is that nobody seriously confuses “they are,” “there,” and “their” at the language processing level (for lack of a better way to express this concept). When somebody writes “Their going home,” obviously they are not using “their” as a possessive. They know it’s supposed to be a contraction of the words “they are.” However, call it a spelling error or call it a brain fart if you must, but an error occurs in the transcription. Like I said, to me it is clearly a spelling error.
Yet another example: “I rite well.” Spelling error? Of course. Even though “rite” is a perfectly valid word in the English language, it’s a misspelling of the word “write,” which is what is intended here. Now, “I write good,” that’s a grammar error. And “I write goode,” that’s both a grammar and spelling error.
Actually, this I can agree with. The primary error is one of spelling, which does create an invalid written English sentence, which would qualify it as a grammatical misstep.
It’s not as cut and dried as it first appears. But, after reading the different responses, I’m going to have to go with a grammar error. The SO correctly spelled the word he had in his mind. It was the wrong word, but he spelled what he was thinking correctly.
Happens to me all the time. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t understand when to use, or know how to spell, words like they’re/there/their or to/two/too. But when I’m typing fast I do make those mistakes, because, I imagine, the signals sent from my brain to my fingers is based on sounds rather than on spellings. This makes sense when you consider that linguists consider language to a spoken phenomenon and not a written one. Unless things have changed since I was studying the field, linguists have no interest at all in spelling or punctuation.
See, I would say the SO incorrectly spelled the word he had in mind. He clearly had “they are” in mind, but instinct or repetition or a simple brain fart caused him to type “there” instead.
By saying that he spelled the word he had in his mind, you’re stating that he was actually thinking “in that place” as opposed to “they are.” This seems highly improbable. I’m not sure how anyone could mix up those two concepts in their head (in any language).
I have to agree with pulykamell’s last statement, and also with RealityChuck’s broader conclusion that the initial spelling miscue ultimately resulted in a grammatical error.
I think pulykamell already did a good job of defending my position, but just to reiterate:
People do not confuse the words “there” and “they’re”. If they did, we might imagine exchanges like the following:
A: So there!
B: So they are what?
A: Have you seen my books?
B: They’re over here.
A: What do you mean, “there over here”? Are they over here or over there?
Absurd. People obviously know in their mind whether the intention is a contraction of a third-person plural subject pronoun with a present-tense copula, or whether it is a third-person plural possessive determiner.
Rather, people confuse the orthographic representations of “there” and “they’re”. They have a list of of words in their heads all corresponding to the same pronunciation, “they’re”, “there”, and “their”. Knowing which one to choose does require conscious grammatical awareness, but such awareness is only necessary when spelling. It is a spelling error.
Actually, I think this sums up the situation very well, with some elaboration.
Some of the controversy here is due to confounding the cause, or motive for, of the error, and the kind of error that resulted.
In terms of intention or knowledge, as others have pointed out, there was no error. The person (presumably) knows the correct way to spell both words in question, and knows how to use them grammatically.
What happened is the equivalent of a typographical error, but on a whole-word basis, rather than a single word. The person accidently substituted one word for another that sounds the same. (What I would call a brain-fart.)
In terms of result, with respect to the sentence, there were errors both in spelling (there for they’re) and in grammar (one part of speech substituted for another).
I am personally convinced by the arguments of pulykamell, Reality Chuck, Colibri, sundog66, et al.; it was an error of both spelling and grammar. That has the added benefit of making us both right.
You may be convinced, but I am not. I think it was a spelling error. He used the wrong word, i.e. the word that is spelled differently, but that was inadvertent. It was his intention to use the correct word. He just did not do so, because he mistakenly spelled a different, but similar word. As it turns out, that word also functions differently, and consequently, the sentence now contains a syntactical problem. It may now make little or no sense. The result is that there is a grammatical issue with the sentence, but I don’t see the error as a grammatical error.
I think because the error that he made was a spelling error. It happened to result (we assume - because we don’t have the original sentence to look at) in a syntactical or grammatical error. But the error that he made was in spelling the word wrong, not in using the wrong part of speech. He didn’t say “over there” instead of “they are,” for instance. Had he used, for example, whom instead of who, I believe we would not be having this discussion, as we could probably agree that the error would be a grammatical one, not spelling. Here, his spelling mistake happened to create a grammatical problem, but was not a grammatical mistake in and of itself. That’s how I’m reasoning it.
How is this error either a grammar error or a spelling error? With a choice of words, the wrong one has been chosen and then spelled correctly. It isn’t much different to me saying about my friend’s dog, “that is a really big cat you have.”
Again, part of this controversy is due to the fact that some people are looking at the cause of the error, and other people are looking at the error that resulted. Here you admit that a grammatical error did in fact result, whatever the cause of the error.
The cause was probably not an actual error in spelling or grammar, but the inadvertent substitution of one homophone for another. This is analogous to typing 'teh" when you meant to type “the.” You know how to spell “the,” so it’s not an error in spelling per se (in terms of cause, since you have correct knowledge of how the word is spelled), it’s an error in execution, although the typo resulted in a spelling error.
In terms of cause, there is no error in spelling or grammar, but rather one of execution. In terms of result, there are errors in both spelling and grammar.
He used the wrong word, but spelled that wrong word correctly. I’ll bet he knows how to spell all 3 words correctly. It’s a grammar error.
Furthermore, IMNSHO, if you’re trying to say “their”, then
“tehir” is a typo. (one finger hit its key out of turn.)
“thier” is possibly a typo, but probably a misspelling.
“they’re” or “there” is a grammar error.
(If there are any spelling or grammatical errors, then I blame it on my wireless keyboard.)
Ok, and now I think that Colibri’s got a point, too. Do we have a term for simply using the wrong word? Suppose that instead of typing “there” he had typed, and correctly spelled, “fish.” I don’t think I’d be inclined to consider that a spelling error, nor would I consider it a grammatical error. Is it an error? And if so, what kind? Syntactical?
I disagree. I belive he used the right word but spelled it incorretly.
If he used the right word he would have been trying to say ‘there’ instead of ‘they are’.
“I got a postcard from Linda and Bob. Fish in Nevada on vacation.”
I’d say that isn’t even an “error.” It’s more like aphasia or something, and the guy might have brain dammage. No native speaker would produce something like that, unless it was a keyboarding error (that coincidentally correctly spelled a word that was inappropritate) and he didn’t bother to review what he had typed.
