Why spelling and grammar matter
I once had a brief conversation with a colleague, after I'd co-founded a "Council for Writing Quality" at a previous workplace. He'd scoffed at my efforts, and I can still remember (and recreate) a steep rise in my blood pressure when he said "But, others can understand [the message] anyway. Who cares if there's the occasional typo?"
It probably behooves me to insert a disclaimer concerning both people with dyslexia or other linguistic learning disorders and non-native speakers at this point, prior to commencing my rant in earnest. I certainly wouldn't exact the same standards for either writing or pronunciation when I'm aware that they're functionally blind, cognitively impaired, or if the language happens to be someone's second, third or fourth tongue. But the above paraphrase originated from someone who was not suffering from any known linguistic impairment and only knew English natively.
Perhaps it's because English was not my first language, but I've given much thought to its morphology and grammar. Since my prior two languages were morphologically more complex (French) and quite utterly foreign in practically every respect (Japanese: script, phonemes, word order, verb inflection), the primary challenge I had with English was its pronunciation (Sault Ste. Marie stands out vividly as a place name that I was laughed at for incorrectly sounding it out, in elementary/primary school).
In any case, here are my reasons for why I believe adhering to basic grammatical rules and orthography, especially in professional context, matters:
- It's discourteous to ask your audience to cope with poor delivery when the errors are easily correctable. Communication is about conveying signal, and as per my spouse's stance, introducing noise unnecessarily is a sign of lacking consideration for the recipient. I feel this way about "texting spelling" also, and even eschew it in my tweets although many would think contractions are admissible on Twitter.
- Every piece of writing we produce at work has the likelihood of being forwarded, archived, and/or otherwise widely distributed. This means that if these writings are attributable to you, you're cumulatively establishing a projection of your competence, knowledge, eloquence and meticulousness. Consistent and noticeably blatant typos in your body of writing detract from the image you're creating for yourself. In other words, not bothering to correct obvious errors (in the set of grammatical realm in English, the its/it's, you're/your, and their/there/they're issues jump out at me especially frequently) means you're sabotaging your own career. Particularly important are job application cover letters and resumes since they create first impressions, as demonstrated in the Dilbert (c) used in this post.
The second point you make is especially important and I can attest to it firsthand. I have been reviewing a large number of resumes lately and I am often disappointed in the number of spelling and grammatical errors I see. Many of them could be caught with the tools most likely used to create the documents. Personally, I will discount or occasionally even disqualify a candidate based on these errors as it indicates to me laziness, sloppiness, or some other undesirable quality in the applicant.
ReplyDeleteI, too, used to be an ardent supporter of what you refer to as "basic grammar rules and orthography" but after being (indirectly) labelled a "Trussian" (after Lynne Truss, author of "Eats Shoots and Leaves") by David Crystal in his book, How Language Works, I'm somewhat more lenient now.
ReplyDeleteHe argues rather compellingly, that clarity and lack of ambiguity are the gold standards by which we should judge all communications, and that widespread (ab)use by the general populace will always prevail over a rigorous application of The Rules.
He cites Truss's criticism of "The greengrocer's apostrope" (where an apostrophe is inserted before the "s" in a pluralised noun, e.g. Apple's - $1/kg), and argues that this was the "correct" form until sometime in the 18th Century when the fashion of the language changed (and greengrocers presumably didn't). I quote: "to condemn someone for using such forms as potato’s is actually to display linguistic ignorance – an ignorance of the logic behind such forms which the modern users are unconsciously manifesting."
So while yes, sometimes it can be an indicator for a lack of attention to detail, this may not always entirely be the case if the writer is sincerely ignorant of his or her mistake. Hence I now personally would not pass over a candidate purely on the basis of a misplaced apostrophe.
@Caesar, you definitely make a good point about how orthographic rules are in flux (I'm waiting until judgment gets its first "e" back, since so many people prefer the "incorrect" form of judgement).
ReplyDeleteHowever, "sincere ignorance" on the part of someone whose writing I read is not easily discernable, and regarding your specific example of "greengrocer's apostrophe usage" (or is it "greengrocers' apostrophe"?) unless the writer IS a greengrocer, or uses the apostrophe in this way for food nouns, I still wouldn't think it appropriate for use in the IT industry. Unless it's related to my natural language processing work and it cited as an example of what grammar check should support in a specific context, perhaps.
Like you, I appreciate reading well written text and want to see that the author has made a reasonable effort to deliver something that follows the rules and convention of the language.
ReplyDeleteThe more formal or important the writing, the more rigorous checking I would expect from the writer, so I wholeheartedly agree with your comment about poorly written resumes and I have received some bad examples, ironically even for positions as writer and editor.
PS. Not trying to be picky but does the sentence "Perhaps it's because English was not my first language ..." really take a comma? One of the – possibly incorrect or incomplete – rules I remember from my English classes was to never use a comma with "that", the other was something about split infinitives :-)
Hello Klaus, it seems to be my turn to thank you for catching a problem - I've now replaced that "that" with "but": I think I'd intended to use the latter originally. As well, I'd said "written and pronunciation" when "writing and pronunciation" makes better sense.
ReplyDelete