These days, it would almost seem that good grammar and spelling has gone out of style. Almost. It’s amazing how many times a day we run across “professional” marketing pieces with blatant grammar and spelling errors. At first blush, perhaps it seems that these faux pas are of no real consequence. But, the truth is, lack of attention to the basic rules of good grammar and spelling can imply an overall lack of attention to detail, conscientiousness, quality, knowledge and experience. And who wants to do business with a company that lacks these fundamental qualities? Not to mention the obvious fact that poor writing can result in poor communication – not getting your message across. Entire books have been written about the subject – and then there’s the panda joke:
A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
“Why?” asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
“Well, I’m a panda,” he says, at the door. “Look it up.”
The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. “Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
Here are some basic tips to help you avoid these embarrassing mistakes:
- Don’t forget to use Spell Check
- Don’t rely JUST on Spell Check. It won’t catch mistakes like using the word “there” for “their” or “to” for “too.”
- Read your verbiage out loud. This may help you catch those errors as well as get a better feel for whether or not what you’ve written is clear and has the tone you intended.
- Have someone else proof your writing – someone you trust to have good grammar and spelling skills.
- Use the same care writing your Twitter and Facebook posts as you would with your emails, blog posts, and other business writings.
- Don’t overuse exclamation points. Three is my ultimate limit, and only on that very rare occasion!!!
- Monitor your apostrophe and quotation-mark usage. People tend to go crazy with these things by putting them in the oddest places.
- If grammar and/or spelling are not your strong suit, or if you need to double-check yourself on a particular issue, these resources can sure come in handy:
- dictionary.com
- thesaurus.com
- grammar.quickanddirtytips.com
- www.apostrophe.org.uk
- The Gregg Reference Manual (in our opinion, this is THE ultimate resource for anyone who writes, edits and prepares material for distribution and publication)
No one’s perfect – mistakes will happen. But, persistent, habitual grammatical and spelling errors appear amateurish and can do damage by implying an overall lackadaisical attitude. So, take care and take the time to minimize them. It’s really pretty easy and it’s just good business.