Dangerous Grammar
Posted on | June 27, 2010 | No Comments
Words are powerful. You might not be aware of it, but whenever you’re communicating with customers or potential customers, you are trying to tap into this power. When you write your brochure, your signage or your website, you’re choosing your words carefully because you want to persuade and entice people. “We do plumbing,” for instance, is not quite as appealing as “We are reliable and efficient plumbers.” It’s all about creating a favourable perception in the mind of the reader. So if you’re going to be careful picking your words, you’ll want to be just as careful with the way you arrange them – that’s grammar.
I sometimes get myself in trouble by admitting that I do draw certain conclusions about a business that has spent good money on a sign or an advertisement but hasn’t bothered to get it checked. (I’m including spelling mistakes here along with punctuation and grammar.) You might think that I am just too fussy for my own good, or that I’m one-of-a-kind, but you’d be surprised how many people out there are just like me!
OK, so I’m not going to be too worried about the chicken shop that sells ‘Chicken at its’ best’, or the grocer who sells ‘Plumbs 3$ a kilo’. But when it comes to products or services that require real attention to detail, it might be a different story. Would I shy away from a tiler whose huge (expensive) billboard refers to ‘maintenence’ services? Or the hairdresser who offers ‘ladies and mens’ haircuts – all you’re styling needs’? Well yes, to be honest, I might.
It’s not about making mistakes – we all do that. It’s about the subtle message that is given out when you find errors in writing that is meant to be attracting customers. The message I get is that the person just couldn’t be bothered to check their accuracy. These errors whisper to me that they don’t care too much about getting things exactly right.
So what can you do to avoid this situation, if you want to attract customers who care about this stuff? Lots of Australians were never taught grammar at school, so for many of us, it’s even harder than it should be! It’s never too late to learn, but if you need a quick solution to help you get your writing right, here are some suggestions…
- Proofreading is really difficult. If you want to do it properly, you need to set aside some time. Try and give yourself a break between writing something and proofreading it.
- Reading out loud can help you to check if you’ve missed any words and to make sure all your punctuation is in the right place.
- Reading from the bottom of the document and working your way up, one sentence at a time, is a great way to slow yourself down, and will get around the common problem of reading what you think you’ve written, rather than what you’ve actually written.
- If you’re not sure that you’ll be able to spot problems in your own work, you’ll need help. Asking a friend or colleague to check your writing is a great way to pick up typos and small errors, because someone else will spot them instantly, even if that person not a ‘grammar guru’.
- Treat with caution grammar checks and spelling checks in word processing software! They will not pick up every mistake and sometimes might lull you into a false sense of security.
The wonderful world of proofreading marks
Posted on | June 21, 2010 | No Comments
I’ve just enrolled in a course called Professional Editing & Proofreading, and am going to be learning how to use proper proofreading marks! They are very strange and hieroglyphic when you’re not used to them, but I guess they will start to look familiar soon.
The ‘text book’ that comes with the course materials is the Australian Style Manual for Proofreaders, Editors and Authors, a government publication that actually looks a lot like a text book but is meant to be a one-stop shop for how we write things in Australia. I haven’t read it cover to cover yet (and it’s probably not that kind of book) but it addresses such issues as structuring documents, punctuation, numbers and measurement, methods of citation, typography, spelling, titles and forms of address, and a lot more besides.
I did just have a terrible moment where I happened to come across a page about punctuation and quotation marks (for instance, when you are directly quoting someone) and I was SHOCKED to see that they advocate putting punctuation like full-stops outside the quotation marks. This violates everything I have been taught, and indeed, doesn’t really seem to be reflected in any of the books, magazines or newspapers I have read in the last few years. I am now feeling like a rebel and a revolutionary because I don’t agree with the Style Guide! Oh well, I am going to have to follow the advice I give to my students, and do some research to back up my own point of view…
I bet you never thought that a grammar fanatic would want to buck the system!
A small triumph of the apostrophe
Posted on | June 6, 2010 | No Comments
Lots of people tell me that they get so used to seeing signs (banners, shop fronts, billboards etc.) without apostrophes, that eventually things look strange when they do have apostrophes in the correct place. Needless to say, I am deeply unimpressed with any sign that has the apostrophe omitted merely for aesthetic reasons – that is just like saying, “I don’t really like the look of the letter F. I think I’ll stop using it.” The other equally unacceptable reason for leaving out an apostrophe must be sheer laziness: not being bothered to work out where it should go! Today I was very happy, though, driving past the Bronte PLUMBERS’ SUPPLIES store to see its apostrophe proudly in place where someone had paid for it to be painted – correctly 
Hurrah! Please go and buy your plumbers’ supplies from the Plumbers’ Supplies Co-op, and support them and their lovely punctuation.
It is a bit of a sad state of affairs when I am making a fuss about the rare instance of a correct sign, isn’t it?
Grammar for world peace?
Posted on | May 26, 2010 | No Comments
Well it has been a while since my first post, and I think I need to make more of an effort to write short entries frequently, rather than saving up for long ones infrequently! Fortunately, I’ve been teaching a lot of courses lately and these always bring up interesting questions, and sometimes even moments for reflection on the philosophical aspects of grammar.
One of my recent students, Julienne, told a story about a lecturer from her uni days who felt that the semi-colon was punctuation for world peace! (Metaphorically speaking…) Apparently his points to back up this view were (1) the semi-colon’s function of joining two sentences together that would otherwise be separated by the larger gap of a full stop and capital letter, and (2) the way it brings balance to the force by giving the sentence on each side equal value. I really like this way of thinking about a very underused but expressive piece of punctuation. I think the semi-colon is probably the one punctuation mark I most often get asked about.
Turning now to concepts of democracy and equality: capitalisation. Students often ask for clarification on when to start off someone’s title with a capital letter. This is a great dilemma because it does get you thinking about where you’re going to draw the line. As Grammourpuss points out, “If the Area Manager is capitalised, should the Branch Manager? The Assistant Branch Manager? The Team Leader? And if the Chairman of Shell gets a capital, should the Chairman of Bob’s Plumbing Services (Bob)?” (See www.gpuss.co.uk for other good grammar tips.) My feeling is that if the Prime Minister and the Chairman are going to have capitals, fair enough, but what about the Consultant and the Cleaner? Are we going to get them too?
There are many different answers to the question, but I think the most important thing is to be consistent. If you decide that the President, the Prime Minister, the King and the Queen are the only ones to whom you are going to apply capitals, that is a valid choice and you should stick to it. The interesting point is how far down the hierarchy you will take your capitals!
Leaving you now to go and think further profound grammatical thoughts…
Natasha
I or me?
Posted on | February 12, 2010 | No Comments
People who come to my courses sometimes ask, “When do you use ‘I’ and when do you use ‘me’?” A common example of confusion would be: “Jacques invited Sally and I to the party.” (This is incorrect – it should be ‘Sally and me’.) Many of us are brought up to believe that, when referring to yourself and another person, you must put the other person first in the sentence for the sake of good manners. The problem is that you do then lose the sound of the pronoun (I or me) and which one should be correct. There isn’t a blanket rule – it depends entirely on the sentence.
A good but simplistic way of working it out is to leave out the other person in the sentence: just leave Sally out. You would never say, “Jacques invited I to the party.” You would say, “Jacques invited me to the party.” So even when we put Sally back in, the word ‘me’ will still be correct.
Another example would be, “My brother and I went to the supermarket to buy the groceries.” It’s the same dilemma but you can use the same approach to work out the correct form. Leave the brother out of the sentence. Would you say, “I went to the supermarket…” or would you say, “Me went to the supermarket…”? You’d say ‘I’. So that means the sentence, as it is written, is correct.
One of the deeply satisfying columns written by The Pedant in the Times Online explains the difference. The problem is that he uses a lot of terminology many people have never been taught, such as nominative, accusative and preposition. It is difficult to explain in a technical sense the difference between I/me, he/him, she/her, we/us and they/them without understanding case (i.e. nominative and accusative) but unfortunately we are not taught this at school unless we learn another language. To be fair, English has very few such distinctions compared to other languages, but if you ever want to learn one of those other languages (German springs to mind) you might wish you had been taught the concept in your own language first.
Handy tip
Prevent stress: if you’re not familiar with the parts of speech, purchase a simple English grammar book before you book in for your Spanish classes! Your life will be a lot easier.
Hello!
Posted on | February 1, 2010 | 1 Comment
Welcome to the Grammar Debugged Blog.
Happy blogging!