American Grammar Checkup: Money Down the Drain (Updated)

I first published this post in February 2015, nearly two years ago, when I had about 20 followers on LinkedIn, and I hadn't even heard about beBee yet. I believe it's important to occasionally reprise a post, especially when the subject matter matters. 

We bloggers / writers / authors have many ways to build our personal brand -- see John White's recent post on this topic -- but one of the obvious ones is to write for an audience. And although we don't have to be perfect writers, we do have to be good enough for our expertise in our field not to be challenged.

The three simple tips below are ones that I have written a lot about over the last two years because I believe it all matters.

**********

OK, I know I'm a crank, but my crankiness has a purpose.

Right now I'm banging my head against a wall -- figuratively, although it may get literal -- because I just read the first three paragraphs of a post written by someone far smarter than I am in his field -- with more grammatical errors than I could count.

It breaks my heart to see all his smarts circling the drain -- and to me, it's also money down the drain. 

Why do I say that? Because although we are all smart in many areas, we need to show a particular type of smart fairly quickly to our readers. We need to show that we can handle the English language (if that's what our audience expects) professionally. Otherwise, our readers -- who could become our next clients -- may not think we're worth being hired to help them, even though we are.

So, here are three areas to check before you hit publish:

1. Homophones. These are the pesky words that sound alike but mean something different and have different spellings. Spellcheck will not help you with them; all it can do is check spelling. It cannot and will not check usage. (And there is NO spellchecker here on beBee; prove it to yourself by typing a nonsense set of letters. You might be better off if you create your articles in Word or any platform that does have spellcheck; at least you won't inadvertently use a non-word.)

The words I see most often confused are affect/effect, everyday/every day, its/it's, loose/lose, than/then, their/there/they're, and your/you're. There are others, but these seem to be the most common. (For more on homophones, go to GrammarGoddess.com and click on Blogs. I have an entire section -- Tuesday Tricksters -- devoted to just these confusing words.

2. Run-on sentences. These are sentences that should have periods (full stops) somewhere in them. We are not allowed to write compound sentences (two separate sentences, each containing a subject and predicate) and separate them only with a comma. We need to either end them, as mentioned above, or use a semicolon to separate them. More on that here.

3. Capital letters. Why do some writers think every third or fourth word should be capitalized? If a word is a proper noun (the name of something or someone) or the first word of a sentence, it should be. But if not, then it generally shouldn't be. Capital letters serve a purpose, but used indiscriminately, they make most information hard to grasp and they make us look unprofessional. It's almost like using too many exclamation points -- They Practically Shout The Information To Readers!!!!! For more on this, click here.

One more small thing: Normally a person's name is capitalized, at least in English. I have seen hundreds of profiles here on beBee (and over on LI) with personal names and company names not capitalized, and I would encourage anyone who has not used capital letters in those areas to make some changes. You may be hurting your reputation just by using all lower-case letters.

I realize it's unfair to judge a person by how he or she writes, but it does happen. Our blog may be someone else's first experience and impression of us, so we need to be especially careful to read what we've written before we hit publish.

Do you look and sound as smart as you are? Is your money going down the drain ... or into your wallet?

*********

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I hope you find it relevant, and if it has helped you in any way, I also hope you will ... 

Share it, so your connections can see it and perhaps learn too. Let me know what you liked best or learned; that will also help you be seen by my connections. You never know who would be interested in YOU (just ask Deb Helfrich how well it worked for her!). 

*************

My previous posts can be seen here, and they're easy to find because they're categorized. Just type in a word in the search box on the topic you're looking for and see everything I wrote on it.  

**************

Do the associates in your company look and sound as smart as they are? They would if they could take one of my Brush Up on Your Skills workshops right where they work. If your company hires outside experts to teach any topic to its associates, please share my posts and website with your Human Resources or Training Manager. 

Are you a member of an association or other groupthat is looking for a speaker for one of its meetings? There are a lot of communication-based topics that could be perfect for a light-hearted and interesting presentation. 

I offer free generic Brush Up on Your Skills workbooks in a pdf format in American grammar, business writing, and interpersonal skills. They show what I teach in my three-hour corporate classes.

Want one? Let me know which one, and please send me your e-mail address.

""