I’d like to take this opportunity to bore … I mean regale you with a recent experience I had with a media content company. This company had shared a link on Twitter exposing the ten most common mistakes made in writing; however, the article itself was riddled with errors and contained information that was simply untrue.
As I often do in this situation, I contacted the company directly (and discreetly, as we professionals don’t like to be seen as gloating in any way) sending a few edited extracts from the article, and suggested they contact me if they would like further help with proofreading.
I have heard nothing since from this company, but on visiting their website notice that they have made the improvements I’d suggested (although other errors remain).
Already feeling somewhat peeved that my free service had been considered valuable enough to be implemented yet not important enough to be acknowledged (just a quick email saying ‘Thank you’ would have sufficed) I was even more disgruntled to see that the company has more than 40,000 followers on Twitter, some of a very high calibre.
Grinding my teeth and muttering about the injustice in the world, I checked a few other websites where companies promoted themselves as quality content writers. Some displayed the logos of fairly prestigious companies for whom they had written content. I noticed that, in many, the overall tone was very friendly and chatty; I could see that this would appeal to many, particularly younger business people. However, I also found many glaring gaffes that would be obvious to the most average secondary school student, and this got me thinking: do others in business place passion and liveliness above grammatical precision? The evidence seems to suggest they do.
This experience was the catalyst for my last post, What’s more important: engaging content or faultless grammar? As I acknowledge within that, there are many reasons as to why perfect grammar is not the be-all and end-all of good writing. A piece that focuses on perfect grammar above content runs the risk of appearing stilted and dry. Breaking the rules often results in a much more engaging and effective piece of writing, but there does need to be a balance between energy and precision.
Or does there? Am I merely old fashioned in thinking that a series of poorly constructed sentences that have to be reread several times to be understood is shoddy rather than up-to-the-minute? Should my insistence that words such as ‘infer’ and ‘imply’ – or, indeed, ‘literally’ and ‘figuratively’ – are not interchangeable be an indication that it is time I was consigned to the knacker’s yard?
Do you think all business literature should be 100% grammatically correct? Or do you think that as long as the message is clear that is all that matters? Perhaps, like me, you agree that there is a balance somewhere nearer the middle of the spectrum.
I’d love to hear what you think. However, should you think I am ready for the local glue manufacturers, please break it to me gently!
Kathy Salaman
The Good Grammar Company
No, you’re not ready for the knacker’s yard just yet! Good grammar is essential, especially in these days of texting and abbreviations, IMHO. What concerns me is that debates about splitting infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions, or beginning them with conjunctions, are largely redundant if the vast majority of people don’t know what these terms actually are.
Company website content is probably guided by the same drivers as fiction, where rules can be broken for impact and emphasis. Nonetheless, the misuse of words and punctuation should be challenged, not dogmatically, but helpfully.
With literacy levels in the UK in decline, every opportunity should be taken to reverse the trend. My own belief is that a major change in education is what is needed, but we can all do our bit to help.