There = Their = They're?

It's been a while since I had to write a paper for an English class, and thankfully the amount of papers I'll be writing at this point are probably numbered, but whenever I think about English papers I always think back to elementary school and the incredible difficulty I had distinguishing the words "there," "their," and "they're." Now, I'd like to preface this all by saying that I am no rhetorician by any means, and that I butcher the English language on a daily basis. I mean, I speak well enough to order in most restaurants without making a fool out of myself (with the exception being those high-brow restaurants that put all those fancy words on the menu), or be able to ask for directions to the local tuxedo rental shop because I was given two different colored socks and my cousin's wedding starts in two hours (hypothetically speaking, of course). With that being said, back in the day I couldn't write more than a few sentences without using the word "there" correctly and having my teachers time and time again correct me. Now don't get me wrong, I understand the importance of using it accurately and by this point in my life I (usually) use it correctly, but I still can't help but feel that when the English language was first being created this whole there/their/they're problem was just a conspiracy to trick little (or big, depending on eating habits and family history) kids into getting worse grades on papers. I can just imagine it now,

Aristotle: "Hey Plato, do you want to make three variations of the words 'there' and make children for the next two thousand years miserable."
Plato: "Would I ever, Aristotle!"
Socrates: "That's a really great idea guys!"
Aristotle: "Be quiet, Socrates, nobody asked you."

And yes, in my fantasies Plato and Aristotle both spoke and created the English language, and were forced to hang out with Socrates because of there parents. And I just used the incorrect variation of the "their," I hope you were paying attention.


xoxo,
Matt