Correct spelting and edda-ting arrgh fundamental

With the plethora of instant text communciations it is easy for us to become sloppy in our spelling, and when using texting, reducing words to rebuses and abbreviations is near-mandatory.

Still, when you are involved in any form of business writing, especially where you have an outside audience, an audience that has some control over your future, correct spelling, and edit reviews are critical.

One of today’s contributions to Global Entrepereneurship Week is our “Back to the Fundamentals” article Spelling and editing are fundamental business planning activities.

Lessons the pros learn and share

I regularly post on this blog about the importance of accurate spelling and correct grammar. It is an ongoing issue for everyone who works with the written word; in education, in any publishing media, in all facets of business, etc.

But don’t think for a minute that I’m preaching from some high seat of perfection. I regularly have my blog posts reviewed by the other two members of our Documentation Team, and they always find some egregious error. [Thanks Teri and Sara!]

It really is impossible for any of us to be correct all of the time. Even the pros make mistakes.

Philip Corbett, the deputy news editor for The New York Times has just begun a new blog, posting “After Deadline,” The Times’ weekly newsroom critique.

As Corbett explains, “The goal is not to chastise, but to point out recurring problems and suggest solutions. Since most writers encounter similar troubles, we think these observations might interest general readers, too.”

Stop by this blog, enjoy the critiques and comments, and improve your business writing.

My thanks to Andy Isaacson of our Palo Alto Software Web Team who sent me the link to this blog.

Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software

Spelling checking can be enjoyable

Spell checking should be an automatic task in all our business writing. I don’t mean simply using the built-in spell checkers in software applications. I mean we should be constantly working at improving our own spelling skills.

Of course, many of us have the painful memories of school spelling quizzes and spelling bees. It is difficult to get back into the habit of learning new words.

Here are two books which I just acquired for my reference shelf, by one of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson. His writing style is crisp and he brings his fine sense of humor to the task. Not only does he give the correct spellings, he includes the most frequent misspellings and incorrect usages.

With these two enjoyable books, sprucing up your vocabulary can be fun instead of a drudgery.

Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software

I don’t think that word means what you think it means

I found the following story on several Internet sites.

At New York’s Kennedy airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, and a calculator.

The Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security believe the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He is being charged with carrying weapons of math instruction.

Al-Gebra is a very fearsome cult, indeed. They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on a tangent in a search of absolute value.

They consist of quite shadowy figures, with names like “x” and “y”, and, although they are frequently referred to as “unknowns”, we know they really belong to a common denominator and are part of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

As the great Greek mathematician Isosceles used to say, there are 3 sides to every triangle, and if God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.

Therefore, I’m extremely grateful that our government has given us a sine that it is intent on protracting us from these math-dogs who are so willing to disintegrate us with calculus disregard.

These statistic scumbags love to inflict plane on every sphere of influence.

Under the circumferences, it’s time we differentiated their root, made our point, and drew the line. These weapons of math instruction have the potential to decimate everything in their math on a scalene never before seen unless we become exponents of a Higher Power and begin to factor-in random facts of vertex.

As our Great Leader would say, “Read my ellipse.”

Here is one principle he knows with certainty, they continue to multiply, their days are numbered and the hypotenuse will tighten around their necks.

Funny, yes? I think so.

Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning-bug.”

The story above is also a cautionary tale about spell checker software, and the almost-right word. Everything in that story is spelled correctly, but many words are very incorrect in the context of Homeland Security. My spell checker just breezed right on by those.

If you make similar mistakes in the business plan you submit, the bank, the investors, the venture competition judges, or your MBA professors will also get a good laugh … and keep right on chuckling as they send your plan to the Out box.

Proofread your plan. Have someone who wasn’t involved in writing the plan read it over. Implement the edit suggestions you receive.

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

Ow! Oh, my aching spell checker!

This article titled Lolcat site hiring; spelling skillz optional appeared in Yahoo! News today.

“I can haz dream Job? My rezumez! let me showz u thm”
That’s the subject line of a cover letter sent by a job applicant to I Can Has Cheezburger, one of the premier sites for so-called Lolcat pictures.

“I got a stack of résumés that I can’t even go through,” said Ben Huh, founder of the site. “You know how they say, ‘Spell everything correctly because the people reading your résumé will toss it out otherwise?’ Well, we can’t even do that. We won’t knock you out for spelling…. The traditional résumé screening methods don’t apply here.”

This intentional devolution of language makes an old curmudgeon editor such as myself just cringe.

Now, I get a chuckle out of these photos and captions too, but you have to know how to spell correctly in order to get the most humor benefit from the misspelling.

To say that it is acceptable to have just a little misspelling on your résumé, or your business plan, is like Homer Simpson sitting at the nuclear power plant controls saying “Don’t worry. It’s OK. The needle is just a little bit into the red zone. Now, where are those donuts?”

Use your spell checker. Proofread your work, or all of your efforts could blow up.

Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software