Booher BanterBusiness Communication Consultant

At the risk of sounding hysterical, let me make a broad generalization:  Poor grammar has become an epidemic.  Everywhere you look, grammar gremlins greet you. 

In a recent email in my in-box:

“Completing this analysis can have a tremendous positive affect on your business.”

On a political campaign billboard:

More Doctors, More Nurses, Less Bureaucrats

On a crawler across the TV screen:

Stay tuned for a two hour special.

In a press release from a Fortune 500 company:

“The labor and the process-intensive nature of maintaining regulatory compliance often drives substantial cost for modern pharmaceutical firms.”

On a website from a major financial company:

“Allowing you to focus on your analysis ensuring that you deliver results on time.”   (written, punctuated, and intended as a complete sentence)

In a national journal:

“Democrats will start by trying to pass a quickie stimulus package later this month, and persuade an departing Republican president to sign it.”

Does anybody notice or care?  Evidently more than a few do.  On Facebook, groups of grammarians have joined for such common interest.  Their mission: to fight poor grammar in the social networking community.  Two key reasons come to mind:

First, image.  One Facebook group is even called “I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar.”  Obviously, the more than 300,000 members of that group consider poor grammar harmful to their image and to the image of other social networkers.

Second, clarity.  Clarity can be at stake in sentences such as the following:

“Phones will be installed in every office, and they will repaint the walls.”  (Phones will repaint the walls?)

“O.J. Simpson said his lawyer was sad and depressed.”
(Or did the writer actually mean, “O.J. Simpson, said his lawyer, was sad and depressed”?)

Chances are that both of the sentences above sounded correct to the authors’ ears—but they didn’t write what they meant.  Understanding the essentials of grammar can not only save you from embarrassment, but from the frustrations of misunderstandings when you thought you told someone exactly what you needed them to know.

Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to:  People don’t get as worked up about the issue of grammar as I do because they don’t know what they don’t know.  It’s much the same situation as with cars for me.  I don’t get as worried as a mechanic would about a certain rattle under the hood, because I don’t recognize the rattle as a warning that the car’s engine is about to blow a gasket.  But just because I don’t recognize the seriousness of the situation doesn’t make it any less so.  Likewise, for grammar deficiencies.

Here’s a quick quiz. See if you can choose the correct word or find the error in the following: 

1. He mailed multiple invoices to Joe, Sue and (I, me).
2. Carol, Whitney, and (myself, I) are involved in that project.
3. You may make contributions to (whomever, whoever) you wish.
4. People do not buy products (which, that) seem overpriced.
5. I see the situation a little (different, differently) from my experience in sales.
6. The car drives (well, good) in most road conditions.
7. (Fewer, less) employees are taking vacations due to heavy workloads.
8. Darla has (over, more than) twenty years of experience in human resources.
9. She considered it (an, a) honor to be invited.
10. Working long hours with many family responsibilities, time off can be as important as a raise.  (What’s the error here?)

How did you do?   Compare your answers to the correct answers below.  (And consider this:  This quiz didn’t cover questions on some of the major issues such as subject-verb agreement or punctuation.  Those kinds of mistakes can actually reverse the meaning of a sentence.)

Want more? Go to www.BoohersRules.com to test your skills further with a complimentary 25-question assessment.  Find out where your grammar skills are strong and where you could brush up on these fundamental skills.  In a tough economy, you don’t want to give a boss “one more reason” to drop the ax.

 Answers:

1. me
2. I
3. whomever
4. that
5. differently
6. well
7. fewer
8. more than
9. an
10. “Working long hours” is a dangler! Who’s working long hours in this sentence?

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