Last month I blogged almost every day and I chose to use the blog to share my knowledge and hope that readers found that useful. I’ve had a week or so ‘off’ and now I’m back on a slightly different tack. The next batch of blogs will be my ramblings on writing both from a creative point of view, but also the technical side of getting the ‘is’ dotted and the ‘ts’ crossed.
I don’t know about you, but I am old enough to have been taught English in an era where grammar, punctuation and spelling were important. I meet many people who are fussy about them and who form opinions about the writer as a result of their accuracy.
It’s interesting that, if people get it right, nobody notices. I rarely come across someone saying “How refreshing it is to have a piece written with perfect punctuation.” However, if I had a pound for everyone who has had a bit of a rant about someone writing ‘your’ instead of ‘you’re’, using apostrophes incorrectly or some other sin against the English language I’d be rich!
Blogs tend to be relatively informal and many people forgive the odd error – we’ve all been guilty of occasional typos, but consider what happens when people find an ‘error’.
- Those who aren’t influenced by correct English will just carry on reading.
- Some of those who are fussy about English will have a momentary pause as they register the error and then will continue reading.
- People who are pedantic will stop, start an internal conversation with themselves about the error, possibly start an external conversation with someone else and the message that they were reading will be completely ignored.
This means that every error you make can disengage potential purchasers of your services or products. Anything that gets in the way of your message is bad news!
There’s another, but more subtle, effect of poor English too. If you can’t be bothered to make the effort to get your English right (or to have someone who is good at it to either write it or check it) then what does that say about your approach to service deliverables?
A little stray apostrophe can have a huge impact on your business. Now there’s a thought!
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