Baker's Toolkit (or not)

Perhaps a grateful nation should offer up a prayer of thanks to Luisa Zissman (who she?) for putting us right about apostrophes. This A-grader in A-level English has decided to drop the apostrophe in her company name because, you know, she says, obviously, URLs don't allow it. Perhaps they should. 

Brilliant, obviously, you know, she says, at creating multi-million pound businesses, she does admit to knowing what an adjective is but has problems with verbs and proverbs. Yes, well, we all do, don't we, chickens?

In the sure and certain knowledge that she won't accept, being busy creating multi-million businesses as she is, I'd like to offer her a free place on the next Proofamatics workshop on Friday 4 October at Capita Learning & Development. During the day, she'll revise all she ever should have learnt about grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalisation, as well as learning a simple method of proofreading.

Far more than a baker's dozen of exercises, it's sort of, like, you know, a writer's toolkit.

Shareholders (bad) v investors (good)

"The company is being run solely for the benefit of the shareholders" - bad thing. Boo, hiss. "The company is being run solely for the benefit of the investors" - that's OK, then. Or at least, in some way, it sounds better. Why?

Shareholders own a slice of the company and, usually, get to vote at the AGM. In return they hope for a dividend and/or a share price rise. Investors put their money into the company, in a variety of ways, hoping for a return. Those 'ways' could include shares, bonds, debentures and sundry other financial instruments. In other words, not a lot of difference between the two. And your pension fund will probably be both.

Without shareholders and investors, companies wouldn't get started, wouldn't employ people, wouldn't provide goods and services that their clients want. Without shareholders and investors upstart companies wouldn't be able to challenge incumbents and offer better, cheaper, faster services to the market.

But yet, if you want to run down a company, particularly if it provides service in the public sector, you use 'shareholders' and, apparently never, 'investors'. (For many, this seems to be a coded way of saying that the government could do it better. Apart from the patently obvious fact that usually it can't, where is the money going to come from to finance this state-owned organisation? From an investor more usually called the taxpayer - and he/she won't get a choice about the investment and certainly won't be able to take the money out if it all goes wrong.)

So, next time you hear one of the commentariat or a politico banging on about shareholders, think investors. Use the less emotive word and bring some common sense to the discussion.

What is . . .

'What is is what is not is not is not that it it is'
becomes
'What is, is. What is not, is not. Is not that it? It is.'

Silly, really.

Test your proofreading skills

How good a proofreader are you or your staff?

To celebrate summer/the Olympics/the start of the footy season/someone’s birthday/an anniversary we are giving away 100 five-minute proofreading assessments. These assessments are used in Proofamatics workshops to measure the improvement in participants' skills - usually, by the way, a 30% reduction in proofreading errors.

To claim your free assessment, and a copy of our invaluable Proofamatics guide to grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalisation, simply e-mail us on info@proofamatics.com with your name, company, address etc.

We have 100 to give away - first come, first served.

I hope you are well?

Just received an e-mail from a company which started with 'I hope you are well?' 


I suspect the writer didn't mean what he said. He was probably asking after my health, though goodness knows why - we've never met and I may work from my bed due to a congenital illness, for all he knows. (Have you noticed how call-centre calls all start with this unnecessary question? Thus making them even more annoying than they are). What the writer actually wrote was that his hoping was in question. Personally, I would caution him against exposing his inner doubts in this way. 

The e-mail was promoting a Professional Written Communication Skills Training Course. Nuff said.

First and only

Tautological adspeak and poor at that. You can't be 'first and only'. When you were first, you were the only; if you are the only, then you were, and are, the first.

You might consider 'the first and still the only'. Don't: 'only' is sufficient here. However, 'still the only' works as a shorter, punchier, phrase and makes a point about your uniqueness and the lack of serious competition. And it's the same number of words as the first, incorrect effort.

There, that was easy, wasn't it?

A simple proofreading system

It isn't difficult to proofread but it can take time to do it efficiently - unless you have a system. Reading straight through the document and hoping for the best usually doesn't work that well. It leads to reading for comprehension and then you read what should be there, rather than what actually is there.

A simple system is required:

Concentrate You can't be on the phone, listening to the radio or having a conversation with colleagues and expect to be able to spot errors

Break up the text There are various ways of doing this. You could, for example, break the document into columns and read straight down each column; you could jump around the document reading 'blocks' of text (this is good for checking hard data such as values, quantities etc.); try reading the second half of the line before the first half (tricky, but effective)

Concentrate See above

Don't look for all types of errors at once There are too many types of errors to find them all in one go. Be prepared to scan the document two or even three times to find different sorts of errors. For example: hard data, then grammar, then typos

Concentrate Getting the message?

Finally, skim the full document Having found all, or most of the errors, read through the document, fast, to check that it makes good sense.

And don't forget to c*********e.

Homosexuals and Lesbians

The Daily Telegraph @telegraphnews obviously doesn't know its Latin from its Greek. On the front page today it refers to 'homosexuals and lesbians'. As 'homo' in this word comes from the Greek meaning 'same' (think homophone or homonym) not from the Latin meaning 'man' (think 'ecce homo') then it is fairly clear that 'homosexual' means 'of the same sex' and includes both male and female - and what they have written equates to saying 'readers and women'. (Mark you, deep in Charles Moore's empire, they may well think in those terms.)
This does, of course raise the question of what word to use for homosexual men that equates to 'lesbian' for homosexual women. 'Gay men' doesn't really work as one can equally say 'gay women' and I think, trust, hope and pray that we've moved from 'raging queen'. Maybe we have to bow to one of the numerous Daily Telegraph articles about women taking over the world, getting the best jobs and making men into second-class citizens - they won't even let us have a word to describe 10% (allegedly) of the male population!

Waterstone?s

A further nail in the coffin of the apostrophe? Waterstone's, a purveyor of books on all subjects - including English grammar and punctuation - has decided to drop the apostrophe from its name to make it easier for users in this digital age. One can only assume that they are busy tearing pages out of the grammar books they purvey and that their usually educated and helpful staff are being put through emergency English lessons.
Howls of horror from the Apostrophe Protection Society, as is only right but, one suspects, not much other negative reaction as few people actually know the rules and, it seems, even fewer care.
Perhaps Mr Daunt, the current MD, comes from Birmingham where they decided to drop the apostrophe from all road names a couple of years ago.
Three cheers for the march of progress, then?

The Etymologicon

I've just started reading The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language and can't recommend it too highly to anyone who has an interest in, or a love of, words. The author, Mark Forsyth, says his family forced him into writing it as all other avenues of self- or psychiatric help couldn't cure him of his insistence in not only taking a single simple word and tracing its roots, and their roots, and their roots, but then talking about it to anyone with the temerity to ask and the patience to listen.

The first chapter takes us from books to bookmakers to turn-ups; the second from medieval French gambling to the gene-pool - honestly, there are links - and all written with a wryly self-deprecatory style that I can only envy. You'll find it on Amazon and in your Christmas stocking if you're lucky.

And I don't know the author.

Patronisingly, he said . . .

Just heard a 'social commentator' say, rather patronisingly, that the Duchess of Devonshire (she called her Kate, so I assume she knows her well) doesn't do a good job of patronising British designers. Personally, I think it's very easy to patronise the designers of some of the catwalk creations trotted out each year. Little dears. But, of course, the 'social commentator' didn't mean that. She meant it in terms of 'being a patron' and purchasing their wares. (The D of D is apparently rather more sensible in her, rather stylish, buying habits. She even wears some of her outfits more than once!) That aside, however, the comment illustrated how one word can mean two very different things and how careful a speaker/writer should be when using them. Or perhaps it was her new word of the day - he said, patronisingly.
Just noticed that the Blog editor keeps wanting to put a 'z' in the word. No.

Mea culpa

Just received an e-mail pointing out a grammatical error in my first post. Don't look, I've corrected it now. I'd like to say something along the lines of 'even the best of us', but that seems a moot point now, not to mention an obviously unwarranted claim.
The error was a missing apostrophe, one of my personal betes noir, so there is no excuse. It does help prove one point, though - spell cheque is knot enough.
Thank to Alicia Helman, self-described would-be proof reader, for putting me right. Not so much of the 'would-be', Alicia.

At last

At last, the new website is up. Proofamatics On-line users can log in from the home page, new users can purchase an on-line workshop and devotees of the Proofamatics guide to grammar, punctuation, spelling and capitalisation can purchase directly or download an interactive copy.

In case of fire

Wandering around Asia and staying in high-rise and high-star hotels, I keep being told not to use the lifts. On nearly every lift there is a notice 'In case of fire do not use lift'. Does the management really mean that we shouldn't use the lift in case a fire breaks out? This would inconvenience a lot of people in high-rise hotels in high-humidity regions.

What the notice is trying to say is 'When there a fire, don't use the lift'. The insertion of 'the' would solve the problem. 'In the case of fire do not use lift.' OK, it sounds a little clumsy but it is English.

Cheap downturns - get yours here

Just received an e-mail that refers to the 'economical downturn'. As opposed to an expensive downturn? Or a value-for-money one? Or did he mean the 'economic downturn'? Hmm. A strokey beardy moment, methinks.

£13,00.00 vat

I recently received a quote from a European Management School of high repute indicating the cost of a course as £13,00.00 vat. What did the writer mean and what was the effect of the error?
Apart from being  puzzled (and amused, I'll admit) I lost a teeny bit of faith in the organisation. Maybe they don't run mundane letter- and proposal-writing courses, but that's no excuse. They are offering to teach senior management how to run companies, darn it.
We all know that e-mails are often sent off in a hurry and not checked as thoroughly as we check 'proper' letters, and we all use the immediacy of e-mails as an excuse: 'it's only an e-mail so they'll understand'. Well, chummy, if you can't be bothered to grant me the courtesy of checking what you write to me, I'll not be bothered with the courtesy of replying. And there's a quick way for you to lose business.
On this occasion it was difficult to reply, as anything I said would point out the error to a then embarrassed writer. So I spent MY time searching through the attached literature to find the real cost. Neither productive nor pleasing.
It was £13,000 + vat, by the way.

Plurals

Just heard a reporter on Radio4 refer to 'Attorney Generals'. Should have been 'Attorneys General'. Unless, of course there is an army rank no-one but the reporter knows about. An easy mistake, but not one he should have made.

PROOFAMATICS ON-LINE

In recognition of all those people who can't get to a Proofamatics workshop we have launched Proofamatics On-line, an eight module e-learning workshop available to individuals or in-company groups. Go to www.proofamatics.com to find out all about it. You can get a FREE week's trial of the workshop by getting in contact with us.

ERRORS ARE EXPENSIVE

The letters, documents, proposals and marketing materials a company produces are a measure of the organisation. If they contain spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and incorrect punctuation, then the wrong message is being sent. If written communications are faulty, what does that say about the quality of the products, services and people?

Proofreading errors can affect every letter, proposal, invoice and purchase order an organisation produces. They are noticed and remembered by customers, suppliers and colleagues. They can even result in lost business. They reduce the effectiveness of Quality and Customer Service programmes; they damage the company’s image and reputation. And they are remembered...

There are three levels of errors:

-       -  the highest level is those that leave the company and end up on a business associate’s desk. They can have a simple, negative impact on the way people think about you. Worse, they can be returned, usually to senior management, causing mayhem and retribution inside the company

-     - the second level is those errors which are noticed inside the company before they leave the premises. Their negative impact is minimised, but the responsible department is thought the less of and Quality programmes come into disrepute

-        - the level that no-one ever sees is those errors which are ‘self-corrected’ by the person who made them. This is the most frequent and, whilst no damage is done, the reduction in productivity is both immense and hidden

How does an organisation overcome this problem?

You could: 

-        - rely on spell check: most pea sees have won, but you can knot bee shore that it will c every miss take. It certainly will not notice if not is not there

-       -  check each other’s documents: a splendid way of reducing productivity and a rule that will fall into disrepute within days

OR

-        - teach secretarial, administrative and customer service staff a system of proofreading that works.

Everyone responsible for producing any document that reflects on the organisation should be able to proofread their own documents quickly and efficiently. They should have good grammar, punctuation and spelling skills. They should, in other words, be trained to do the job that is expected of them.

Proofamatics, available from Sindall Jackson Associates Ltd (go to www.proofamatics.com) meets these training requirements. Widely used by commercial, financial and government organisations, in a one-day or two-day workshop it teaches a system of proofreading that measurably reduces errors by 30%. It is designed to be run in-house by the client's staff, or trainers can be supplied.

As business gets tougher, no-one can afford to give the edge to the competition.