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This Embarrasses You and I*: Grammar Gaffes Invade the Office in an Age of Informal[...]
WSJ ^ | June 19, 2012 | Sue Shellenbarger

Posted on 06/20/2012 6:30:54 AM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative

When Caren Berg told colleagues at a recent staff meeting, "There's new people you should meet," her boss Don Silver broke in, says Ms. Berg, a senior vice president at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., marketing and crisis-communications company.

"I cringe every time I hear" people misuse "is" for "are," Mr. Silver says. The company's chief operations officer, Mr. Silver also hammers interns to stop peppering sentences with "like." For years, he imposed a 25-cent fine on new hires for each offense. "I am losing the battle," he says.

Managers are fighting an epidemic of grammar gaffes in the workplace. Many of them attribute slipping skills to the informality of email, texting and Twitter where slang and shortcuts are common. Such looseness with language can create bad impressions with clients, ruin marketing materials and cause communications errors, many managers say.

[...]

Mr. Garner, the usage expert, requires all job applicants at his nine-employee firm—including people who just want to pack boxes—to pass spelling and grammar tests before he will hire them. And he requires employees to have at least two other people copy-edit and make corrections to every important email and letter that goes out.

"Twenty-five years ago it was impossible to put your hands on something that hadn't been professionally copy-edited," Mr. Garner says. "Today, it is actually hard to put your hands on something that has been professionally copy-edited."

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: communication; education; literacy
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Another mile marker on the highway of civilizational decline.
1 posted on 06/20/2012 6:30:58 AM PDT by Constitutionalist Conservative
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

“is dis dee ebony lounge?”


2 posted on 06/20/2012 6:32:53 AM PDT by brivette
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
Where's yer grammer?

My grammer's in the kitchen baking cookies.

3 posted on 06/20/2012 6:36:45 AM PDT by Slump Tester (What if I'm pregnant Teddy? Errr-ahh -Calm down Mary Jo, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

“..Slipping skills due to email, twitter, etc.”

The real culprit is the publik skool system where self esteem, political correctness and liberal brainwashing is more important than teaching grammar.


4 posted on 06/20/2012 6:36:46 AM PDT by Reddy (B.O. stinks)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

People speak, like, really bad, you know.


5 posted on 06/20/2012 6:37:05 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you really want to annoy someone, point out something obvious that they are trying hard to ignore)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

“..Slipping skills due to email, twitter, etc.”

The real culprit is the publik skool system where self esteem, political correctness and liberal brainwashing is more important than teaching grammar.


6 posted on 06/20/2012 6:37:05 AM PDT by Reddy (B.O. stinks)
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Comment #7 Removed by Moderator

To: Constitutionalist Conservative
Ain't that the truth.
8 posted on 06/20/2012 6:37:40 AM PDT by lysie
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
Managers are fighting an epidemic of grammar gaffes in the workplace. Many of them attribute slipping skills to the informality of email, texting and Twitter where slang and shortcuts are common. Such looseness with language can create bad impressions with clients, ruin marketing materials and cause communications errors, many managers say.

To a degree perhaps. But the big problem stems from our failure to properly educate.

9 posted on 06/20/2012 6:38:20 AM PDT by bcsco
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
Obama routinely uses the article "a" prior to a noun beginning with a vowel . . . this from a "Harvard Law School graduate (magna cum laude LOL!!!), "Editor" of the Harvard Law School Journal, and broadly touted "smartest man."

Show me the records. I don't for one minute believe that Obama earned any of his degrees; I believe he was given them.
10 posted on 06/20/2012 6:39:08 AM PDT by Sudetenland (Member of the BBB Club - Bye-Bye-Barry!!! President Barack "Down Low" Obama)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

Racis’!


11 posted on 06/20/2012 6:39:23 AM PDT by TigerClaws (He)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

And sooner or later Mr. Garner will be sued because he hasn’t established the job related link between grammar and spelling and packing boxes.


12 posted on 06/20/2012 6:39:33 AM PDT by Truth29
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

“Anyways” instead of “Anyway” irritates me a great deal.


13 posted on 06/20/2012 6:43:49 AM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: lysie

Fo’shizzle


14 posted on 06/20/2012 6:45:09 AM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: Reddy

Don’t you mean “... ARE more important...”


15 posted on 06/20/2012 6:45:56 AM PDT by Doctor 2Brains (If the government were Paris Hilton, it could not score a free drink in a bar full of lonely sailors)
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To: AppyPappy

When I hear someone speaking and constantly sprinkling in the “like” word, I find myself not listening to what they are saying, but counting how many times they use “like”....a pet peeve of mine.


16 posted on 06/20/2012 6:46:42 AM PDT by kevslisababy
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

The under 30 workforce is particularly illiterate and lacking in communication skills. They cannot puncuate an email, draft a business letter, ask coherent questions, and use “like” and “you know” in every uttered sentence.

Stalin’s useful idiots.


17 posted on 06/20/2012 6:46:57 AM PDT by NoKoolAidforMe (I'm clinging to my God and my guns. You can keep the change.)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative

My pet peeve is “yourself”

As in

“How are you doing?”

“Fine, and yourself?”

Argh!


18 posted on 06/20/2012 6:46:57 AM PDT by chrisser (Starve the Monkeys!)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
This Embarrasses You and I

Everyone knows it should be, "This embarrasses you and MYSELF". /s

19 posted on 06/20/2012 6:47:15 AM PDT by 1raider1
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To: Reddy

The real culprit is the publik skool system where self esteem, political correctness and liberal brainwashing is more important than teaching grammar.

The real culprit is the publik skool system where self esteem, political correctness and liberal brainwashing ARE more important than teaching grammar.


20 posted on 06/20/2012 6:48:07 AM PDT by KingLudd
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