Posted on 09/28/2011 1:00:49 PM PDT by iowamark
Many brilliant people have some communication weak spots. Unfortunately, the reality is that written communication is a big part of business, and how you write reflects on you. Poor spelling and grammar can destroy a professional image in an instant.
Even if your job doesn't require much business writing, you'll still have emails to send and notes to write. And if you're looking for a job, your cover letters and resumes will likely mean the difference between getting the interview or not.
Bad grammar and spelling make a bad impression. Don't let yourself lose an opportunity over a simple spelling or grammar mistake.
Here are seven simple grammatical errors that I see consistently in emails, cover letters and resumes.
Tip: Make yourself a little card cheat sheet and keep it in your wallet for easy reference.
You're / Your
The apostrophe means it's a contraction of two words; "you're" is the short version of "you are" (the "a" is dropped), so if your sentence makes sense if you say "you are," then you're good to use you're. "Your" means it belongs to you, it's yours.
You're going to love your new job!
It's / Its
This one is confusing, because generally, in addition to being used in contractions, an apostrophe indicates ownership, as in "Dad's new car." But, "it's" is actually the short version of "it is" or "it has." "Its" with no apostrophe means belonging to it.
It's important to remember to bring your telephone and its extra battery.
They're / Their / There
"They're" is a contraction of "they are." "Their" means belonging to them. "There" refers to a place (notice that the word "here" is part of it, which is also a place – so if it says here and there, it's a place). There = a place
They're going to miss their teachers when they leave there.
Loose / Lose
These spellings really don't make much sense, so you just have to remember them. "Loose" is the opposite of tight, and rhymes with goose. "Lose" is the opposite of win, and rhymes with booze. (To show how unpredictable English is, compare another pair of words, "choose" and "chose," which are spelled the same except the initial sound, but pronounced differently. No wonder so many people get it wrong!)
I never thought I could lose so much weight; now my pants are all loose!
Lead / Led
Another common but glaring error. "Lead" means you're doing it in the present, and rhymes with deed. "Led" is the past tense of lead, and rhymes with sled. So you can "lead" your current organization, but you "led" the people in your previous job.
My goal is to lead this team to success, just as I led my past teams into winning award after award.
A lot / Alot / Allot
First the bad news: there is no such word as "alot." "A lot" refers to quantity, and "allot" means to distribute or parcel out.
There is a lot of confusion about this one, so I'm going to allot ten minutes to review these rules of grammar.
Between you and I
This one is widely misused, even by TV news anchors who should know better.
In English, we use a different pronoun depending on whether it's the subject or the object of the sentence: I/me, she/her, he/him, they/them. This becomes second nature for us and we rarely make mistakes with the glaring exception of when we have to choose between "you and I" or "you and me."
Grammar Girl does a far better job of explaining this than I, but suffice to say that "between you and I" is never correct, and although it is becoming more common, it's kind of like saying "him did a great job." It is glaringly incorrect.
The easy rule of thumb is to replace the "you and I" or "you and me" with either "we" or "us" and you'll quickly see which form is right. If "us" works, then use "you and me" and if "we" works, then use "you and I."
Between you and me (us), here are the secrets to how you and I (we) can learn to write better.
Master these common errors and you'll remove some of the mistakes and red flags that make you look like you have no idea how to speak.
You’re making it sound simple because you’re only using present tense. It gets confusing because lay is also the past tense of lie. Toss lain and laid in there and it’s really confusing. Even though I know the rules, my dog lay down on couch last night sounds wrong. I intuitively want to use the participle and say/write “laid” even though I know it’s incorrect.
Don’t know...
Further and Farther confuses me.
I thought bad grammar and semi-literate expressions were just staples in country music? I’ve told my wife that I’ve been allergic to country music ever since I heard the immortal line, “You burn me up like a chicken at a barbeque” coming from her car stereo.
And then there are those on this site, all of them conspicuously missing from this thread, who when you dare to point out their confusion of itses with it’ses, resort to calling Kelsey Grammer a Nazi, a connection too obscure for me, but that’s probably my uninformed fault.
That one’s easy. Farther is for physical distances only, and further is never for physical distances. If you can’t walk it, drive it, sail it or fly it, it’s further.
LOL! snort))))
That’s one of my most frequent mistakes. I guess I didn’t deserve an A in grammer.
“Get The Hammer Mama, There’s A Head On Papa’s Fly “
Watch, that will go over someone’s head.
The one I hate is “all the sudden” or “all of the sudden” instead of “all of a sudden.”
http://grammartips.homestead.com/sudden.html
http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/all-of-what-sudden/
(Interestingly, the second link says that in the 1500s “the sudden” was the common form of the idiom. But not today.)
But seriously, the'your' used where the contraction of you and are is one of my favorite fox paws on the Net.
But seriously, the 'your' used where the contraction of you and are is one of my favorite fox paws on the Net.
Actually, accusing someone of “begging the question” means that the answer they have given in no way addresses the issue in the original question but instead assumes the premise to be true, or offers a “non-answer”.
Probably today’s questioners don’t wish to be as confrontational and accusatory as the phrase originally was crafted to be.
Silly me. Or rather my Engrish teacher. So “cheap” is “unexpensive” after all.
You left out the comma (coma?) before the object.
And link that last phrase to your blog page.
One of our department managers uses ‘definitAly’ instead of inserting e’.
Our VP embarrassed him in front of the staff. I feel for the guy. But for crying out loud, the guy is 45 years old and still spells that way???
“coinky-dinky” or “coinky dinky” or “coinkydinky”?
When was the last time you heard “lickety split”?
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