Business In Washington - Business Operations & Management Consulting

I just received an email newsletter from a local business (who shall remain nameless, but not blameless) with this statement: “SMILE your on CAMERA!” I groaned and decided it was time for a blog entry. This was one time too many. Ignore the poor punctuation, with the badly needed but missing comma after the word “SMILE”. It’s the misuse of “your” that has caused me pain.

The last time I saw this blatant error was on a sewing show. I love to sew and am addicted to the Saturday morning quilting and sewing shows on PBS. The show in question was focused on a project combining quilting and embroidery. It used the following saying (with their spelling): “In the crazy quilt of life, I’m glad your in my block.” The mistake stuck out like a sore thumb to me, but apparently the show hostess and guest both missed it. This was not only printed, but machine embroidered on a detailed project - on silk, no less. I winced.

This isn’t that hard, folks! “Your” is a possessive. Your stuff. Your project. Your whatever. “You’re” is a contraction of “you are”. Very simple, right? It amazes me how often these two very different words are mistakenly interchanged. Perhaps it’s because spell checkers don’t catch this.

The Word Cop sympathizes with the challenge of correct word usage and spelling in a rich and complex language such as English. But she also deplores the sloppiness that allows so many errors, and in business documents! Lots of us do spot these errors, and what kind of impression are we likely to have of your business?

Business owners, take heed!

Greetings, gentle readers! The Word Cop was enjoying a peaceful lunch break just now, listening to the news and attempting to ignore the commercials. In spite of my best efforts, one commercial intruded on my reveries and the fighting Word Cop had to come out!

The ad was for Guaranteed Tax Relief. First off, let me state categorically that my comments here are not intended to insult or otherwise disparage this company. I know nothing about them. They may very well have a heck of a fine service. I will leave potential customers on their own to make that judgment.

My only issue here is with their grammar. Their URL, that primary tool of branding and communicating on the internet, is www.lesstaxes.com. AAARRRRGGGHHH, to quote Charlie Brown. You can pay “less tax” or “fewer taxes”, never “less taxes”. Got it? It’s a simple concept. “Less” goes with a single item and “fewer” goes with a multiple of something. So, for example, to prevent cavities, eat less candy or fewer candies.

Now, I realize that the owners and employees of a company like Guaranteed Tax Relief are financial professionals, not grammarians, so I would like to cut them some slack. However, if you are going to spend money advertising and branding, wouldn’t you like to create an impression of professionalism? Poor grammar won’t help with that.

This company is stuck with a URL that declares to all and sundry on the web, and watching television since it was on their ad, that they have an English problem. Their own knowledge of proper English is lacking, they are too cheap to hire skilled editorial help, or they simply don’t care.

It is my fervent hope that this is just a simple oversight, soon to be corrected. As promised, slack from the Word Cop!