What is the correct word to use in this sentence?

Question

Mary, Douglas, and Mark decided to hang (they're, their, there) coats in the closet.

Chose the correct word.

Answer 1

"their" is the correct answer as a possessive pronoun referring to the coats of the 3 subjects in the sentence (Mary, Douglas, Mark).

theyʻre = they are. no need for another subject and verb since the sentence is looking for a pronoun.

there = in or at that place. not correct since in this sentence, there is the closet.

Answer 2

You've found a trio of homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings). They're found throughout the English language) mostly because English is a hodge-podge of words that have been borrowed from other languages. Homophones can be great fun to use and very useful to master.

In this case THEIR belongs to someone (it belongs to them). THERE is a place (it's not here, it's there) and they're is a contraction (they are) which is fine in speech and casual writing, but THEY ARE is generally not used in formal writing.

There are other homophones you'll want to learn like TO and TWO and TOO. All sound the same but have very different meanings. TO indicates a direction (he went TO her). TWO is the number that comes between ONE and THREE. TOO means also or very. None of these can trip you up in speech because they all sound the same, but the difference is essential when you're writing.

(Homophones are everywhere. YOU'RE is a part of a two word homophone - YOU'RE is a contraction of YOU ARE and YOUR indicates something belongs to you. YOUR hat.

You also find two, three, four, five, and even a few six-word homophones and there's a great list at https://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/fun/wordplay/multinyms.html, Again, none of these will have any impact when you're speaking. But when you're writing, oh boy, they matter....