Passionate Potpourri

“The reason to stand up for punctuation is that without it there is no reliable way of communicating meaning,” explained author Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

The author boldly defends the use of proper punctuation and the critical role it plays in written communications.

My favorite from this 2006 book:

“A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

This column is a look back at education and the important role grammar plays in written communication.

Once upon a time, before the 1980s, classroom teachers relied on a variety of instructional resources. The printed word, known as hard copy in journalism, was the staple source of information. Computers changed all that.

Teachers worried that technology would lead to illiteracy because students could utilize the internet to access information instead of trudging to the library and poring through weighty tomes to complete research assignments.

Fifty years later education has changed but the need to master written communication has increased despite those early fears.

Anyone who has ever looked for employment or tried for an unpaid internship knows that completing job applications requires a specific skill level.

“For the internship, I submitted my résumé, work samples, and a cover letter,”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/

The overwhelming majority of job applicants make simple mistakes by misspelling common words such as writing “insure” for “ensure” or “affect” for “effect.” Spell-check is only as reliable as the writer who proofs the finished document. Examples include typos that turn the word “and” into “add” and “manager” becoming “manger.” Other common typos include “plague” for “plaque.” Typing “compliant” instead of “complaint” is a standard slip-up made by those working in customer services.

The “i before e” rule in English has been the curse of millions - from youngsters competing in traditional classroom spelling bees to highly educated writers.

The jobs site Adzuna released its 2019 analysis of 20,000 U.K. résumés. The result found more than 90 percent included misspellings or grammar mistakes. Men tended to make more mistakes than women, with eight percent of female job hunters sending in a flawless résumé compared to just six percent of men, according to https://www.cnbc.com/

A common complaint made by business managers is number of employees who cannot write a correct sentence in English. No matter the type of work, good grammar is relevant for all organizations.

“If job hopefuls can’t distinguish between ‘to’ and ‘too,’ their applications go into the bin,” wrote CEO Kyle Wiens, iFixit, an online repair manual company, in a Harvard Business Review article.

Many employees are prone to making one or more common grammar errors. It is only in print that these create misunderstanding.

Apostrophe misuse is number one. “We need to get our sale’s numbers up”” – wrong. We need to get our sales numbers up” – the correct use.

Other common mistakes that confuse the reader include using the incorrect word: everyday/every day, I/me, it’s/its, less/fewer, lie/lay, lose/loose, that/who, then/than, there/their/they’re, in addition to your/you’re, according to NPR, “You’re Saying it Wrong.”

Homophones such as there/their/they’re are tricky because they are pronounced alike but have a different meaning and spelling.

“We have a language that is full of ambiguities; we have a way of expressing ourselves that is often complex and elusive, poetic and modulated; all our thoughts can be rendered with absolute clarity if we bother to put the right dots and squiggles between the words in the right places. Proper punctuation is both the sign and the cause of clear thinking. If it goes, the degree of intellectual impoverishment we face is unimaginable,” said the author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Amen and pass the mustard!