Poor grammar on websites scares 59% away

This article appeared on the Real Business website yesterday.  Real food for thought!

Fifty-nine per cent of Britons would not use a company with poor grammar on its website. Have you checked yours recently?

A new study has revealed that 59 per cent of Britons would not use a company that had obvious grammatical or spelling mistakes on its website or marketing material, and 82 per cent would not use a company that had not correctly translated its material into English.
The research, conducted by Global Lingo, polled 1,029 UK adults on their online purchasing and browsing habits.
Those taking part were asked whether or not they tended to notice the quality of spelling or grammar or a company’s website – 74 per cent said yes.
When asked whether bad grammar or obvious spelling errors would stop them buying from the website, 59 per cent said it would, with the majority claiming that they "wouldn't trust" the company to provide a good quality service. Others would be put off due to an obvious lack of care, or would consider the company to be unprofessional.
"The fact that such a high percentage wouldn't trust a company with poor spelling or grammar just goes to show how crucial it is that businesses make the most of every opportunity, especially in these tough economic times," says Richard Michie, marketing and technology director at Global Lingo.
"You only have a short amount of time to make an impression on a potential customer, and if your website or ad is riddled with grammatical errors, it’s not going to place you in a favourable light. Competition is tough, and if you don’t take the care to present yourself in as professional a light as possible, you may well be losing yourself important business."
When consumers were asked if they had ever come across a website that was clearly translated from a foreign website into English, which then read inadequately with bad grammatical mistakes, 31 per cent of individuals admitted that this had indeed happened to them. But the impact is dramatic: just 4 per cent of this number then continued to use the website or purchase goods from it.
This works both ways, so if you are doing business internationally, ensure that your foreign-language website is mistake-free.

Tips for working from home

Marketing expert Marc Gordon offers these tips for success:

• Have a designated work area.  Forget the kitchen table - have a room with a door to call your own.  Train your family to know you are unavailable when the door is closed.
• Keep set hours.  It can be easy to take a few hours off in the afternoon, then work till midnight.  The problem is that this can lead to you working too many hours or not enough, resulting in either exhaustion of a lack of business growth.  Try to keep your hours in line with the rest of your industry.
• Have a "second office".  A change of scenery can make you more productive.  So grab the laptop and head off to a coffee shop or local library for some creative thinking.
• Go to networking events.  It's easy to become solitary working from home, making you unmotivated and uninspired.  Meeting new people will not only keep you sharp, it may even bring in new business.
• Schedule your time.  Set aside blocks of time throughout the day and week for work, chores, meals, errand and "me time".

More tips from Gordon are on his website: www.marcgordon.ca and his online show: marctv.net.

Say what you mean

Most confusing heading in the local paper this week: "Price of price is extortionate."

On a more helpful note a letter to The Times, from Canon Richard Lindley no less, offered the following help for confusing similar words:

"My recommendation used to be to think of 'advice'/'advise', which are pronounced differently.  That was my advice that was what I advised."

This holds for licence/license, practice/practise too.  The c is for nouns and the s for verbs.  Easy when you know how!

I didn't see it but apparently a tweeter from the BBC accidentally typed and sent out the phrase 'Margaret Thatcher dies following a strike', whilst an Irish TV channel's website was advertising a broadband provider whose tagline read 'the wait is over'. Nobody's fault but so easy to see how that happened.

There was also an unfortunately autocorrection at the Los Angeles Times because the computer would not allow the sentence to begin with 'but' so corrected to 'Butt cracks eventually appeared in Lamb's persona.'

Best of all though, the massive advertising campaing for a company calling itself, 'Reliability: always upholding the highest standards for every detal'. 

Apparently the best place to see this kind of thing is on TV subtitles, resulting in "turkeys are lining up against the border of Syria' (BBC) and apparently ITV asked a headteacher if 500 executions (instead of exclusions) meant her school is out of control.  I'll be watching (and reading) with added interest in future.

Now are you confused?

Some good examples here as to why writing english is hard - from a notice board this week.

Lead rhymes with read, but lead rhymes with read.

The bandage was wound around the wound.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when does are present.
A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
The accountant at the music store records records of the records.

If GH can stand for P as in Hiccough 

If OUGH stands for O as in Dough 

If PHTH stands for T as in Phthisis 

If EIGH stands for A as in Neighbour 

If TTE stands for T as in Gazette 

If EAU stands for O as in Plateau

Then the right way to spell POTATO should be: GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU

Not quite what was meant?

Spotted in the local paper this week:

"A firm's account manager who fiddled the books to enable him to steal more than £180,000 has been warned he is 'almost invariably' facing a prison sentence." 

Has this happened before or did the reporter misread his/her shorthand for 'almost inevitably'?

A report on an inquest, despite being sad, made me smile.  The deceased "underwent the operation, to repair damage cause by a tumour in his naval cavity and skull".  This time I feel sure it was finger trouble and the reporter meant nasal. 

More on the health front meant that a young lad was reported to have had "an operation to remove my Gaul bladder".  I had no idea that one of our body parts was French!

At least it kept me amused.

Richard Branson's best "tool"

One of the posts of the week was about Richard Branson and asked what he couldn't work without.  His comment was: "There are some people who seem to be able to do everything themselves. I am a great believer in the art of delegation and in sharing the load to make everyone more productive."  The "thing" he couldn't do without was his assistant.

Clearly he is doing something right but even the smallest business can delegate if they use a virtual assistant!

Great return on delegation

I was at a workshop on Friday last week and one of the presenters was talking about making the best use of your time.  His suggestion was scheduling 90 minutes, in 3 separate sessions, with specific goals to achieve during each session, when you are at your best and can work without interruption.  Sound advice but not advice that is followed very often.

He urged us to concentrate on doing those things that only "you", as the business owner and main driving force, can do.  He advocated off-loading all the things that someone else can do to someone else, preferably a person with the specific skills to do those tasks more easily and quicker than you can.  To answer the inevitable response - I can't afford to do that - he said that was RUBBISH (his caps) and that you would gain between 3 and 10 times the revenue you spend to do this.  Quite a return.  I nearly cheered!

This is the first time I have come across a specific cost/benefit statement for delegating your routine work whilst you get on with the really important process of building your business and illustrates the real difference between working in your business and working on your business.  I'm sure the thinking is based on the extra time you will have available if you are not slogging away, thinking how busy you are, but actually not making any progress at all.

I guess I'm biased because my business is based on relieving people of their routine and time-consuming tasks but, even so, I'm trying to put his 90 minute suggestions in place.

The apostrophe's death sentence and reprieve

Fun and games in the press this week because a council in Devon decided, in the small print of a report, to remove "all punctuation, including apostrophes" in the naming of streets, ostensibly to avoid confusion.

The Times went into battle with a leading article, reproduced below, headed "Punctuation's Perplexities".  This explains in great detail why the apostrophe is such a useful little mark and why it is worth mastering its use.  The attention seems to have had the desired effect and Mid Devon Council announced yesterday that they had had a change of heart.  The headmaster of a local preparatory school commented "What hope would we have in teaching children punctuation if it has been removed from society and all of the road signs?".  Exactly!

"Punctuation's Perplexities

'The rules governing this vexing little mark are evidently hard to master,' wrote Kingsley Amis about the apostrophe, 'and if you have any trouble with them or it after the age of 14 or so, the chances are that you will always be liable to error in the matter.'
That reasoning appears to have occurred also to the Mid Devon District Council. But the inference that the council has drawn from it would have provoked a visceral response from the celebrated author and professional curmudgeon. Apostrophes have progressively fallen into disuse in Mid-Devonian street names. They are now to be banished altogether, to 'avoid potential confusion'.
The council does not say what the confusion consists in or who risks suffering it, but the proposed remedy is surely intended to be helpful. Any residents who have not yet mastered the conventions of English punctuation will be spared the effort of wondering what these are and the inconvenience of learning them.
Except, of course, they won’t. Beyond the borders of Mid Devon, and in newspapers and other publications that intrude within them, the apostrophe will remain in use. Its great virtue as a mark of punctuation is that it aids clarity and dispels confusion. It signals the omission of a letter, or the quality of possession and (if so) whether the possession is held singly or plurally. It enables the reader to tell apart a plural and a genitive. The residents of Mid Devon should have the uncontested right to share those benefits, which are enjoyed by the rest of the English-speaking world.
For example, in the town of Newton Abbott, in Devon, lies Bakers View. It is not “Baker’s” View, even though it is named for a man called Baker. This is Sir Samuel Baker, the Victorian explorer and naturalist, who worked to suppress the slave trade in Southern Sudan. In omitting the apostrophe, the council has already ensured that Baker’s name will diminish into unmerited obscurity.
The punctilious urge to tidy up the language by excising apostrophes from proper names is admittedly found outside Devon and it appears to be spreading. But there are good reasons for avoiding that temptation.
Waterstone’s, the bookseller, changed its name last year to Waterstones. Its declared aim in doing so was to shift the emphasis from its founder to its branches and employees. That is a benign intention. It would, however, have been better advanced, especially in the case of a company whose business is the written word, by adopting the name Waterstones’.
Shifting the position of the apostrophe would have conveyed the desired message clearly. The apostrophe is a punctuation mark that drives out ambiguity. It allows the reader to tell immediately if a word or name is a singular possessive (“Baker’s View”), a plural possessive (“Bakers’ View”) or a plural noun followed by a verb (“Bakers View”).
The apostrophe occupies a small space in print or on signs but performs an invaluable role by its presence, position or absence. There is no more versatile, precise and economical mark in the language. Writers who use it accurately can be sure of being understood. Those who use it heedlessly or dispense with it will, contrary to the aims of Mid Devon’s municipal authorities, provoke disarray where they intend only neatness and comprehension. Mark it well."

A teacher in need of an education?

Did you see the letter published in the paper this week from a parent?  This comment was apparently written in a primary school child's book by the class teacher: "You could of wrote more".

I despair of our education system that allows the appointment of a teacher with such a poor grasp of basic grammar.  There are plenty of people around who misunderstand what is being said and then write 'of' instead of 'have', but they shouldn't be teaching children. 

And how can they possibly teach English to children if they don't know the correct tense to use?

Unbelievable.

Event organisation - it looks easy

Organising an event looks easy and, if it’s done right, it should do.  Unfortunately many people find that, when they come to do it themselves, it is anything but.  There are always lots of details, any one of which can bring the project into difficulty and which can make the event look “amateur”.  If you want your conference, product launch, customer thank-you or whatever else you have in mind, to go smoothly there are some basics you need to get right.

When it comes to organising an event, of whatever kind, it’s important to start at the end.  When is it to be held?  Does that leave enough time to prepare everything?  Are there any fixed points that cannot be changed?  Sometimes it’s the time of year, sometimes an actual date, that is important.  Other things, like Bank Holidays, may influence the best time for your event and they need to be established before booking a venue.

When deciding on a venue it’s important to realise what the pitfalls are.  I once had to set up an event where access for the stand equipment was so poor that large pieces of metal equipment had to be negotiated around glass-walled corridors.  Another had a huge pillar in a room which was hosting a seminar, which meant that the seating arrangement was almost impossible to sort out.  Needless to say, I had not booked nor seen the venues beforehand!

Depending on the venue, some will insist you use their caterers, or include support you don’t need, and charge by the delegate, when you may not know how many people you will have attending.  It’s important to have a spreadsheet which covers all the items you have to spend money on, so that you can see if you are keeping within your budget.

Spellchecker failure

Newspapers long ago dispensed with proofreaders, having decided that spellchecker would do the job for them.  Unfortunately spellchecker does not pick up words that are actually spelt correctly, but the wrong word in the context.

Two found in the same article in the Sunday Times this week:

With the excellence of his performance against Scotland we now that it was not ideas, but gas.

Farrell Jr is already an infinite superior Union player to his father.

In the second case infinite should be infinitely.

Mistakes like this fall into the category of letters left out to form a completely new word:

her becomes he, then becomes the, bonny becomes bony, scar becomes car.

These are very difficult mistakes to pick up.  The thing is, when a reader comes across this kind of thing in your promotional material he or she is likely to pause, to try and make out what the word should be, or perhaps completely misunderstand what you are trying to say.  Worst of all, they may just abandon reading at that point.

Why Does Proofreading Matter?

Proofreading matters because mistakes in your promotional material, including your website, detract from your message and can confuse the reader so that they don't understand what you are saying.  If they don't understand they probably won't engage with you.  Which means no sales.

This particularly applies to non-native English speakers who find our complicated language hard enough and are less likely to pick up the gist of your message.

It's so easy to make a mistake.  We all do it.  But it's really hard to check your own work.  You know what you intended to say and read the script as if that's exactly what you wrote.  Another pair of eyes is needed to bring a fresh look to your work.

Many's the time when I've come across a website full of mistakes but when I try to contact the company it appears that they've stopped trading.  Cause and effect?

A good example of a sentence meaning something completely different from that intended by the writer is the following - and it wouldn't have been picked up spellchecker.

From the BBC Sport website this morning:

"Murray is pulling out some of his tricks now, fainting to go down the line, then flicking crosscourt at the last minute."

Feinting was the word he needed.