.
To be honest, I still do it sometimes. But how people dressed never drove me nuts. It was just the occasion for a private, internal makeover game that the prospective beneficiary (or victim, depending on your point of view) never knew about.
Other pretty insignificant things really do make me crazy though: someone tap tap tapping with a pen or keys on a table when I’m trying to read or have a conversation nearby; an unsolicited robocall on my cellphone; being sent a chain email which says I must send it on to 10 other people to receive incredible blessings (or dire misfortune will befall me).
But one thing that makes me crazier than the rest are the small, written grammatical errors in documents I see that are intended for public, or at least semi-public consumption.
You know the ones I mean:
“He was there best man,”
“John, whom had the highest sales this month excepted our congratulations,”
“I have went to Bermuda many times.”
Sometimes I make this kind of mistake myself, and that makes me nuts, too. A lot of people probably think this is pretty trivial and maybe find me snobbish for cringing at it. But I think it matters.
I believe writing using a common standard is what lets us all understand one another. I know that English evolves and that there are some pretty arbitrary rules for standard English. But knowing them and using them correctly is what enables us to communicate effectively, clearly and in a nuanced way across regional, cultural and national boundaries.
What got me started on this today was something I saw in a LinkedIn management group forum this morning. Someone in the group commented in a discussion about “going their.” I mean, dude, really!! Do u think ur on Twitter? And yes, I know his browser might have finished his word for him, or maybe he forgot to review what he’d written, but just the same, it bothers me.
If you’re commenting on a discussion in some big-shot expert forum on LinkedIn, at least use correct English. You wouldn’t attend a business meeting in a crumpled suit with your fly unzipped, would you? To me, writing this way shows a similar lack of respect for the people you’re communicating with and for the English language.
English is a rich, subtle and flexible language, with a great ability to show things visually. To take just one tiny example, think about the difference between “go in” and “come in” and what your use of one or the other says about who’s where and whether one person is about to approach another. Not every language has that dexterity. And while other languages have their own glories, we should savor those of English.
But to do that we need to know how to use it.
Some people think writing in incorrect language just reflects the glory of the English language in all its diversity or folksiness. I think that’s absurd. If you’re writing prose for general consumption, especially for a business or professional audience, having people understand you trumps everything. Fiction is another story. (See for example, James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov).
Willful ignorance of grammatical and stylistic rules weakens our ability to express our ideas with clarity, vigor and nuance. Writers who know the rules and bend or break them to their story-telling purposes are the exception that proves it. We all make mistakes with grammar at times, me included, but we can all use style guides (I like Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, but there are alternatives) and other on and offline tools that are available so we can use English more correctly and expressively.
And, of course, the best tool of all is a good book.
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