Right or Wrong? Check Your Meaning: Homophones Quiz

Answer: it's

The easiest way to tell the difference between when to use "its" or "it's" is by recognising the apostrophe, which means that some letters are missing. Many people know that "it's" is a contraction of "it is", but it can also be a contraction of "it has". When writing a sentence with this homophone in, try saying it out loud saying "it is" or "it has" instead. If either of those make sense, the spelling is "it's". If it doesn't, use "its", which is possessive.

For example:

"It's brilliant!" = "It is brilliant."
"It's got eight legs." = "It has got eight legs."
"The cat twitched its whiskers." - Using "it is" and "it has" both don't make sense, so we just use "its". The whiskers belong to the cat - that is possessive, not a contraction.

Answer: their

There are several different tricks that you can use to know which of these homophones to use. The easiest place to start is the apostrophe, which denotes some missing letters. The missing letters in "they're" come from "they are", so you can use the trick where you say the sentence using "they are" and if it makes sense, then you spell using "they're". If it doesn't, you rule it out and move on to looking at the other two spellings.

"Their" is possessive, it is used when we are discussing what belongs to somebody and it is plural (more than one person).

If neither of the above is correct, you use "there". When a place is being referred to, we use "there" - you can spot the word "here" inside "there" which is a big clue that they are both talking about places.

Example sentences:

"The children waved their hands."
"They're wonderful people." = "They are wonderful people."
"Look over there!"
"I heard that there are several different ways to tell which spelling to use."

Answer: eight

There aren't as many noticeable tricks for this one: "Eight" is the spelling for the number 8, and "ate" is the past tense of the verb "eat". "Ate" is an anagram of "eat" - that means that you use the same letters, but not in the same order. This may help to differentiate the two spellings.

Example sentences:

"My favourite number is eighty-eight!"
"I ate my dinner yesterday; it was fish and chips."

Answer: sight

One way to remember which of the three above spellings is talking about seeing things is to think about seeing things a long way in the distance. "Sight" is the longest of the three spellings, and it is the correct one to use when you are talking about what you can see.

"Site" is a short form of website, but it also refers to a place, like a building site. A website is also a place which can help you to remember when to use this spelling.

When you go to university (or maybe college in some countries), you often need to "cite" your sources in essays. That means that when you use quotations from other places, you must have a bibliography where you say who the author was, what book or publication the quote is from, and what page it can be found on. This spelling is primarily used in that specific context.

Examples:

"It was quite a sight to see."
"I couldn't find the site."
"I forgot to cite my sources so I got a zero!"

Answer: you're

Back to our favourite, reliable trick for this one - spot the apostrophe to realise that we're working with a contraction here. "You're" is short for "you are", so you can say the sentence to yourself and try saying "you are" instead. If it makes sense, you spell using the apostrophe - if it doesn't, the spelling is just "your". Your is another possessive pronoun.

Examples:

"I know that you're a wonderful person." = "I know that you are a wonderful person."
"I can't believe that you walked through that puddle and got your socks all muddy!" - The socks belong to the person.

Answer: reeds

A fun way of remembering the spelling for reading a book is that one thing we may have to read from time to time are the advertisements (or ads). You might find the ads inside a magazine: or, alternately, inside the word "reads".

"Reeds" are a type of thin plant that can often be found in rivers or other bodies of water.

Examples:

"My dad reads ten books a month!"
"I don't like the look of all of those reeds."

Answer: wear

This is another case of the spelling "where" giving us a hint to it referring to a place: the word "here" is inside the word "where". This spelling is often used as one of the "w" question words (who, where, when, what, why) although that is not the only time that this particular spelling is used.

"Wear" is to do with what clothes or putting things on your body; a way of remembering this is that "wear" contains the word "ear", which itself is a part of your body.

"Were" is a past tense plural verb - "I was going to the shops" would become "We were going to the shops". While it does not sound the same as the other two words, it is a common mistake to use were instead of where or wear.

Examples:

"Where is my lunch box?"
"I forgot to wear my contact lenses."
"They were supposed to pick me up from school!"
"I don't know where I am."

Answer: blue

"Blew" is the past tense of "blow". A little trick for remembering this spelling is that "blew" has "ew" within it: ew, blowing bubbles is disgusting!

"Blue" is the spelling for the colour - I don't have a fun trick for this one, but you only have to rule out the other spelling!

Examples:

"I blew my top yesterday." (This phrase means "I lost my temper").
"Red and blue makes purple!"

Answer: buy

"Bye" is short for "goodbye", which is probably the easiest way to remember this one. That's the main reason you will see this spelling. A very niche other use of the spelling "bye" is in cricket: a "bye" in cricket is one of several extra ways of scoring runs other than them being added to the batter's total. As the name would suggest, this can occur when the ball passes by, both without being hit by a batter (either their body or their equipment) and without being too wide, yet the batters still manage to complete a run or more.

The shortest spelling out of these three is "by", it's just two letters, so you can look at it tentatively as two people passing by each other. It's a little bit of a stretch but for me it's the easiest to make a little memory trick about this set of spellings.

Finally, "buy" is a verb that refers to purchasing something, for example from a shop. You (or, in chatspeak, U) can buy many things, and "buy" has a "u" in the middle.

Examples:

"England scored four byes."
"Bye for now!"
"I sat by the fireplace with my friends."
"You really want to buy that?"

Answer: affect

This is a spelling that is very easily confused, however the difference is in the function of the word.

"Affect" is a verb. It is something that you do. You can affect something, or something can be affected by other events. When something has been affected, this creates an effect. The effect is the result of whatever was affected. One way of remembering this is that an "affect" must come before there can be an "effect" and a comes before e alphabetically.

Examples:
"Music playing too loudly really can affect me badly."
"The effect of too much music playing is that it gives me a really bad migraine."

I deliberately linked the phrases above to show the relationship between the two.