Violating grammar rules is fine by me. If done with style to reinforce a voice. But I'm not a supporter of violating grammar rules just because you're lazy. Unless of course you are blogging about a fire raging in the canyon above your house in which case all constraints are released.

Well said, and true 99% of the time. However, I work as a medical editor, and I believe that in some cases (like medical and scientific articles), proper grammar is essential to convey the intended meaning. I can also imagine that financial reports need to be written as clearly and concisely as possible, to ensure that everyone who reads them can make informed choices.

Like I said, I don't think it matters 99% of the time. But when it matters, it really matters.

But then again, perhaps I'm just trying to defend my job :)

> Like I said, I don't think it matters 99% of the time. But when it > matters, it really matters.

> But then again, perhaps I'm just trying to defend my job :)

No you're not. You have no idea how many times I have been unable to complete a freeware software installation because the person who labored for months over complex code could not type proper and clear instructions, and I could not decode what they were trying to say in their tortured prose. Even when I write for clarification, I get a hastily hashed-together email that makes even less sense. What really gets me is when I'll ask, "Did you mean [blah-blah-blah] or [blah-blah-blah]?" and they reply, "Yes, that's it."

So many people simply cannot write at even an elementary school level. Many have masters degrees. Frightening.

Generally, I agree, though I do think grammar is, to some extent, linked to communication and an idea without someone who can communicate it is almost as useless as an idea without someone who can execute it.

This will be a fun thread to watch. I did a similar post about spelling mistakes on your resume (here) and people absolutely flipped out.

People are incredibly judgmental about spelling and grammar mistakes. They assume laziness or stupidity rather than examining what the person is actually trying to convey. Getting caught up in the minutia of something that doesn't dramatically change the meaning of what a person is comunicating is more obnoxious than the mistake itself. And if you got worked up by that missing "M" in communicating when it is clear what the word is, you're really missing something else.

Bingo, Lance. You nailed this in a well-written reply. The "over" example cited is no big deal, and the "that/which" example is just plain wrong; Google's orginal sentence was correctly written. You also make a good case for putting grammar in a positive light.
In general, this whole post was a form of snobbery by a boor who wants everyone to adhere to her standards. "Grammar is no big deal since I don't know it all that well. If you are paying too much attention to it, well, you're anal."

Spelling and grammar mistakes in a resume tell me that you aren't meticulous enough to work for me.

You should spend more than enough time on your resume to correct typos and grammatical errors. It's your foot in the door and the first impression an employer has of you.

Specifically speaking to this article, the AP Style Guide doesn't actually have much to do with grammar, it has to do with style. "Over" and "more than" are both perfectly correct when it comes to English grammar. Perhaps Google uses a different style guide? I write for a living and the company I write for uses an internal style guide completely unrelated to the AP Style guide.

I don't think poor grammar is the worst of the crimes being committed in that Google blurb. Overall it's just poorly written and poorly communicated. I don't tend to have too much of a problem with breaking grammar rules if the text makes sense and exudes style, but when it just looks illiterate and awkward I put my foot down.

I also strongly disagree with the assumption that we should follow along behind Google or risk falling into obscurity. I've worked for enough "hip", "cachet" companies to know that there are as many simple incompetents there as anywhere else. In the end we need to use our good sense and personality to stay relevant, and to hell with all the so-called "cultural leaders".

Love this!
Under way is two words unless one is referencing a ship. In other words, ships get underway; projects are under way. I love the specificity of the usage in this case.

I wonder how many grammatical errors are hidden in my comment. A number of things came to mind after reading this post and the comments. Full disclosure: I am a linguist, and I have pretty strong opinions.

First, I get so frustrated by the phrase "good grammar," because the words hide their actual meaning. "Good grammar" is used to mean "grammar that is correct according to the dialect that is dominant in our society." In this case, that's the grammar of predominantly white, middle-class, college-educated people somewhere between the ages of 18-65 who are native English speakers (that's probably not an exhaustive description). There's nothing inherently better about this dialect of English than African American Vernacular English, or the English of rural Appalachia, or any other dialect. This is just the dialect that happened to be used by the dominant section of society, so it got labeled "standard." But other dialects have their own grammar rules, and while I may be pretty good at abiding by the rules of our dominant dialect's grammar, I'm sure I'd be pretty bad at speaking fluent AAVE. So I think it's important to be pretty "forgiving" and realize that in most cases (maybe not scientific journals), if you can understand someone's meaning, that's really all that's important.

With that rant out of the way, I do think it's important, career-wise, to be able to have "good grammar" for the dominant dialect of whatever country you live in. It's a signal that you send out to people about your identity, and in the case of getting and keeping a job, whether you grew up speaking a different dialect of English or you grew up speaking Vietnamese, it's probably going to help your chances if you can perform the identity of someone with "good grammar." Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is.

One final point that frustrates me about the "good grammar" discussion: it so seldom takes into account that language is constantly changing. Language is always in flux, and rules continually come in and out of fashion. Often times the change is so slow that we don't notice it (for example, I'm not quite sure when it became common practice to say "I wish I was taller" instead of "I wish I were taller," but it was sometime during my lifetime, I think), but sometimes it's quick. For example, in the past 10 years, we've added some new verbs to English (to google, to friend, and possibly, to embiggen). Of course context is important – again, when you know your audience, you know what identity you want to project, and you know whether it's okay to use "to friend" as a verb. But still, I think the idea that we can have a universally agreed upon standard for "good grammar" is a little silly, because the definition would have to change a little every day as the way that we use language changes.

Where this leaves us for situations where it's very important to have a clear understanding and definition of meaning and grammar, like interpreting legal documents, I'm not so sure…

I like your thinking on this.

I can't find the exact quote, but I think it was David Crystal who said something like, if you love language you'll love how it changes too. It seems to me that too many people who claim to love language really just want to halt it in its tracks and "possess" it.

I am not familiar with 'to friend'. Does it mean the same as 'befriend'?

One of the best posts here ever. Fuck the rules. If you play by them all the time, you'll never go any further than they allow.

Smart thinking. While I think that some competence is important, don't mistake "proper" or "good" for "effective." If the grammar is so bad that it impairs the communication of an idea or an emotion, fine, fix it. But I'd wager that more often than not, ostensibly good grammar gets in the way.

Violating grammar is cool by me. As long as you don't come off as an incoherent jackass spouting AOLspeak.

If I can understand you and your idea hold merit, I'm not going to care about a typo.

I must pick nits with your Google example.

Over vs. more than is a style decision. There's nothing grammatically wrong with "over." The justification for the style is that over implies physical position, whereas more than implies greater magnitude, so there is something of a danger sometimes that when you say "over 25,000 children" you are talking about a really, really big blanket. But lately that distinction has been blurred and thus it's much more of a style decision. Will you get thrown aside for using one rather than the other? Of course not. But if you understand the implications of the words, why not use the one that's more accurate?

As for the that vs. which, it's not that you are voting for one doodle (as opposed to voting for several), it's that there is more than one doodle. "Vote for the doodle, which will win," implies that there is only one doodle and that it will win if you vote for it. Perhaps this sentence would appear on the Web site of one of the doodle's creators, where there is no question which doodle they're advocating for.

I will agree with above comments that the non-appositive which is coming into fashion. I don't like it, but I will admit to its increasing frequency. The real divide is between "that" and "comma-which," or the difference between the essential and the appositive clause. But in this case the "that" is very much correct.

On the substance of your post:

In the end, as much as it sucks that people are making "snobbish" judgments about others based on their grammar, it's based in this truth: Grammatical and style rules are really about how much you care about your writing and how much you respect your readers.

Language is communication, and part of communication is keeping the reader there and listening. Sure, you're understandable if you use the wrong form of "it's/its," but for every time your language is imprecise or jarring, you run the risk of losing a reader who says to himself or herself, "Gee, this writer couldn't care less about what he or she has just said" or "Why would this writer think I'm going to waste my time on something he or she didn't even care enough to edit?" And that sort of defeats the purpose of putting your message out there in the first place.

In that way, it's a pragmatic, even a political decision to edit. Edit because whether or not rules are useful, they're necessary to the larger cause of expressing yourself and keeping an audience. Copy editing = dealing with reality. And not dealing with reality and expecting to be respected for it? Yeah, that's pretty stupid.

Just one person's opinion, and I will cop to making my living as a copy editor, so I've got skin in this game.

Well said, Cranky Editor. Those of us who (it would appear) are about to lose our relevance salute you.

In response to Cranky editor:

Language is primarily a tool used for communication. 'What' vs 'How'? Sure, 'How' can make the 'What' more effective. But ultimately, its(For the grammar police- pronoun refers to 'How') purpose is secondary to the 'What', and this is the reason why writers shouldn't care if they lose readers who are more interested in the 'How' than the 'What'.

Understanding someone's point is more important to me than someone's good grammar skills. However, when someone's poor grammar skills reflect poorly on the company, then I tend not to overlook it as quickly.

Interesting article with many good points. I'm enjoying the comment section also!

I wonder when people who complain about typos and grammar will begin to realize they are revealing an unpleasant aspect of their personality? When I was a child one of my cousins put on 'mis-matched' clothing, and I was so astounded I pointed out to her loudly: "You can't wear two different prints together!" The reason I remember is that my aunt turned beet red and clearly felt humiliated. Then I felt chagrined (haven't used that word in years–probably misusing it now). I knew instinctively that mismatched clothing meant much, much less to me than my aunt's comfort and self-respect. And I think about this when I see people make minor mistakes. Unless I feel they are damaging their image or their company's image, I ignore it.

A lady is a person in whose presence a man realizes he's a gentleman.

While it's true that grammatical errors may not change the meaning of a sentence, they interrupt the flow of a sentence. Many readers will stop at the incorrect use of "its" to note that the author doesn't know the difference between "its" and "it's," a practice that breaks up the continuity of a thought and should never be a goal of writing. There are armies of these readers who are not just writers like us. My husband, an architect whose only writing consists of one-sentence emails and who never reads books, will point out to me his co-workers' grammatical errors in memos and his friends' misspellings in blogs because he can't believe they make such stupid mistakes–yes, it's not just Jodi Gilbert who thinks grammatical errors make people look stupid. Also, look at the many New York Times readers who panic at incorrect uses of superlatives: http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/rules-and-the-editor/. My point: Readers notice, so it's a writer's job to ensure that grammatical errors don't get in the way of readability.

It is not impossible to proofread your own work. All you need is a period of time after writing it to be able to effectively proofread, and this is entirely possible with good planning.

And finally–did you really insinuate that everyone who is good with grammar not only has poor social skills but also has Asberger syndrome? Shame on you!

It's "Asperger's Disorder." The error did not bother me, but it did illustrate your point that these things can distract the reader.

You're confusing style and grammar. AP Style is not the definitive style guide for everyone, either.

Grammar is "correct" when it's something a native speaker would produce. A sentence is appropriate for the workplace when it is written in the prestige dialect–the more formal dialect they teach in schools. It is important to your reputation to use the prestige dialect most of the time, but it's not the only "correct" way to speak. Style only matters to a few (journalists, copy editors, etc).

Ah, a subject dear to my heart.

First, style choice is completely different from correctness of grammar. Choose the former according to the audience.
Instead of poor grammar indicating quality of education, I think it indicates the level of care given to one's communication. Indeed, I know many cases of both Harvard and Cornell graduates with atrocious grammar practices and high school dropouts with impeccable skills. There may be a weak correlation between higher education and better grammar skills, but I prefer to think of them as orthogonal.

When someone bungles "affect"/"effect" or throws a "their" where it doesn't belong, I see it as an opportunity to ask that person if they care about the mistake. If they care, I teach them. If they don't care, I drop the subject and my mental evaluation of that person is changed accordingly.

There are those who care about what they're communicating and those who would prefer not to worry about the effects of their ramblings. There is certainly a place in the world for the latter group, but it is a place apart from the precise, high-quality world that I prefer to function in. Imagine if Apple were to release a new iPod that "Let's you load you're songs on to an computer." Would you give them the benefit of the doubt and still pay a premium for their product, or would your opinion of them shift? What might poor grammar indicate about other aspects of the quality of their product?

As has no doubt been said many times, good ideas are not sufficient to create great products—execution and communication are crucial components. A great idea with shoddy execution is just as worthless as one that is communicated poorly.

Very simply, whenever I am reading someone's writing, I am paying them for their content with my time and attention. Content that is careless and riddled with errors is of a lower quality, for which I will not pay as high a price. If the errors are too numerous, I will simply refuse to pay at all.

Ah, but writing IS a social skill as well. How you attend to your written word does in fact reflect upon you. If you cannot write properly, some may assume that you also may not speak properly.

I believe it is always in your own best interest, personally and professionally, to put your best self forward regardless of the medium you communicate in at any given time.

This post seems more about avoiding the work required to do the best job one can. Whether it is laziness is not for me to judge, but there is a reason why people are asked to take English and grammar classes.

But that is why the distinction between grammar and style is so critical. Applying style correctly requires constant choices and involves greater effort because one must ask "For whom am I writing?" Applying grammar correctly is more like riding a bicycle. Once you've learned to do it correctly, it is more or less effortless in the future — beyond the work of writing itself.

P,

A valiant effort, but you missed my important point – writing IS a social skill – the one your community uses to communicate with the outside world.

As to the issue of doing your best, I think your reply illuminates a few important issues.

Initially, looking at effort versus payoff from a near-sighted perspective (Will this be good enough for what I need to do now?), you may be right at times – 80% might do. But there could be a longer term payoff if your work was consistently demonstrated to be the best you could do. It's really kind of a slacker's mentality…or

It is a sign of someone trying to do too much in too little time with no sense of prioritization to manage the duties to accomplish each day. Sometimes you have to admit some things cannot be done, lest the balance of everything else gets the all-nighter treatment. The end result is a messy and ultimately derailed life of unfinished and unrealized work.

Maybe it's time to slow down, reassess what the true priorities are, and feel comfortable enough to let some pursuits go in the name of preserving the ones which are truly important.

I mean are we really soooooo busy that we use our out of control lifestyles as an excuse not to provide common courtesy in the treatment of the written word?

I disagree that using good grammar might "derail" your career. Good grammar is important to me. I also think it's important for a written message to have a good structure in addition to good grammar. For whatever reason I'm naturally good with it, although I reserve the right to use colloquialisms here and there. I don't mind if others do too. I'm not a member of the grammar police squad. But I have to say that if I see misplaced apostrophes and comma splices, I'll usually pay less attention to what I'm reading. My career isn't suffering. And I'm not socially awkward as a result of using good grammar.

You come off as a remarkably arrogant tool, but no. Your social life is excellent, I'm sure.

I won't repeat the multiple references to the difference between style and grammar – I will however point out that I detest the argument that it shouldn't matter if you're correct if you have enthusiasm and imagination. I'm in the finance field, so perhaps in your world enthusiasm is more important then misusing it's and its – but I would never tell my employee – who cares about a little rounding error – you're imaginative. By insinuating that correct grammar doesn't matter – you're insinuating that written communication is unimportant and I have too much respect for the linguistically talented to believe that for a second.

Nobody here recommends to throw grammar out the window when it comes to highly formal settings, such as the conventional workplace! You're winding yourself up over a completely phantom argument. And a rounding error wouldn't be considered a grammatical error. And your incessant abuse of the dash made it difficult for me to follow your train of thought, Ms. "linguistically talented".

"Nobody here recommends to throw grammar out the window when it comes to highly formal settings, such as the conventional workplace!"

Except for the explicit sum and substance of Penelope's original post.

I'm reminded of the scene in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, when an exemplary soldier (portrayed by Sting) is executed for his above-average performance because he's making the other soldiers feel inadequate.

I don't believe that the proliferation of amateur, unmoderated blogs correlates directly with the decline of the print industry, nor that "abundance" equates with "success." As a proofreader, my vision of hell starts with the writing industry collectively shrugging its shoulders and murmuring, "Eh, close enough. People will know what I meant."

Heartbreaking is the anti-intellectual movement that claims being correct is a form of elitism with no function beyond making those not "in the know" feel bad about themselves. For me, editing is not just a matter of concision of expression but a plea for sanity! I'll admit I'm a prescriptivist of the first water, but living language has beggared expression and comprehension quite enough, without the soldiers of literacy laying down their arms and complaining of lower backache.

I love grammar too and can't help being judge-y, but I also love when people think of new words, are creative with language and just plain-old write how they talk.

I agree you can't be 100% gramatically correct all the time and get anything done, but some stuff is more important than others — resumes, cover letters, introduction e-mails — THAT stuff should be proofread a thousand times. And when I read basic stuff — not nitpicky stuff — that's wrong (your/you're, its/it's) it always trips me up a bit and takes me away from the author's point.

Once I heard that good writing should be as clear as glass, so good that readers get right to the true meaning and aren't tripped up by either overly flowery writing OR mistakes.

I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but I also think it's important to look at it from the quality control angle. It may be 5.0 to not know the difference between affect/effect, but it may also reflect a lack of care about getting things right. Ideas only become great when people get the details right. Sloppy doesn't help nobody. (you know what's a sloppy technology? Itunes – sounds like crap, lacks a lot of basic functionality, etc. I know, it's made gazillions and that's really all that matters because people care less about quality every day.)

And I'll admit, more than/over, around/about, hopefully and bunch of other stuff grate on me, but I don't hold it against most people.

And to illustrate the awful cage grammar can be I'd tell people to listen to the last Springsteen record, which is so devoted to operating within the confines of a particular musical structure it sounds tortured and ridiculous most of the time.

Right, I've only just started reading your blog, so thanks for the nice work!

Honestly, this is one of the best blog posts I've read in terms of presentation and tone, by far. And yes, I know that's not grammatically correct at all.

I think Penelope makes an interesting point. Granted the headline may not be accurate (I don't think it will derail your career per se) but it is important to know how much emphasis/importance we should really associate with grammar. And I agree that we shouldn't judge people by their grammar, but by their ideas or enthusiasm. I would much rather have 10 talented people with bad grammar and 1 "editor" to make sure the work they churn out is written well, than 10 grammatically perfect people who had no content (which is what we do as a company). I know that won't work for a newspaper, but I meant outside that sphere.

And the newspaper not being financially viable, while suspect as a statistic, is the best line of this post and deserves to be tweeted :)

-cnd

The example of what you call "snobbish" judgements contains SPELLING errors, not only grammar errors. It is by no means snobbish to expect an adult to know how to spell properly, since dictionaries are readily available, both online and conventional. Using loose instead of lose is a spelling error – sorry, not acceptable. There is a difference between using a word with a similar meaning (which vs that, in your Google example) and using the wrong word (lose vs loose). And one last comment: as others have said, a style guide is NOT a grammar guide. Style indicates the preferred method for an organization or medium. Grammar is a set of rules that really have nothing to do with "style". Unlike 'which' and 'that', style and grammar are not interchangeable. PS: Eats, Shoots & Leaves is one of my all-time favorite books…laugh out loud funny!

I completely disagree with you, Penelope. If you're writing a blog, grammar may not be that important. If the sole audience for your writing is a bunch of twenty-somethings, grammar may not be that important. But in most professional writing, GRAMMAR IS IMPORTANT.

In psychological terms, an affect is the experience of feeling emotions (cf. Affect (psychology). Thus, it's important when discussing grammars to recognize that statements such as "affect is a verb" is only true in the popular case, not necessarily in all cases.

Overall, as a writer I've long held the belief inculcated by my own English teachers: a good writer may knowingly break the rules of grammar in order to achieve a specific effect, but they should know those rules first. There is a world of difference between an educated writer who deliberately breaks the rules and an uneducated one who doesn't know them in the first place. Too many people never bother to learn these rules in the first place, and their ignorance is usually readily obvious.

Find me a sentence with the wrong version of it’s that you can’t understand due to the error. Wait. No. Forget it. Because you can’t. So a lot of grammar does not clarify meaning, it just serves to show you are good at grammar.

There a facet you haven't considered: that good grammar makes reading faster and easier for readers. Every time I see "its" vs. "it's," the perceptible lapse while I wonder which the writer actually meant means that I'm not intuitively understanding what the writer says.

If a grammar mistake like this happens once, it's coincidence. Twice, it's circumstance. Three times, and, as Goldfinger would say, it's enemy action.

Grammar has more functions than just showing one's skill at grammar: it's a signaling device regarding education, as you note, but it's also a courtesy regarding readers' time. If you take too much advantage of that courtesy, readers aren't going to stay readers.

I agree with you that content is more important in career writing than grammar, but grammar shapes the content so we all understand each other clearly. Without it, we'd spend too much time trying to decipher meaning. But, nitpicking grammar smugly benefits no one.

Training business people to write better for the past ten years, I've met so many smart, creative business people who are absolutely paralyzed by grammar. They're convinced they are poor writers, when they are actually very competent. They have highly honed analytical skills and creative insights, but are hesitate to write them due to grammar inadequacies. It's so easy to fix grammar, and it's much harder to develop these important critical thinking/analytical skills. I always tell my clients that grammar is important, but an occasional error will not derail a career; it's a brief embarrassment only. Content (ideas, information, direction…) is much more important to business communication success.

"Eats, Shoots and Leaves" is about punctuation, rather than grammar. The subtitle is "The Zero Tolerance to Punctuation".

Good grammar matters if your job involves written communication with clients, suppliers etc. Often or not, people notice "bad" grammar and it tends to overshadow your message.

But the examples given here aren't glaringly huge grammar mistakes. The ones I notice tend to be their / there; your / you're; it's / its mistakes.

Caitlin was right when she brought up the issue of different varieties of English. So many American speakers of English have told me my English is horrible because I write "If I was…" instead of "If I were…" What do you say? I'm always tempted to tell them to get a life, but I do the patient teacher thing and point out that in the UK, that's what we generally say and write and that it's considered "correct".

Thanks for a great post and the interesting comments!

"The one" we are voting for can refer to the childre or the homepage rather than to the doodles…that bugged me.

I have to wonder if you'd make the same basic point about logic: When people get the point you're trying to make, does it matter if there's actual logic behind it?

I damn well hope so! See, your invalid assumption that tight adherence to grammatical rules = the demise of newspapers is logically outrageous.

And sure – logical syllogisms are cumbrous and dinosaurian in many contexts; strict grammar is often the same. But the rules are there for a purpose.

Personally, I agree that effective communication trumps grammatical finickyness, but I also believe intelligence and education should be seen as virtues (not snobbery) and that the more lax people are about grammar – and logic – the worse-off we'll be. And I'm 22, by the way, so don't think I'm just old school.

/soapbox.

Hear, hear! I agree about the newspapers: mainstream media is dumbing down in a big way. I think that hampers their credibility.

The longer I live abroad and work in a non-native English speaking environment; the worse my grammar, style, and basic command of the English language get! When you hear the same mistakes often enough, they start to sound correct.

The bright side is that we are all more focused on understanding each other than correcting each other!

Wow – I can't believe someone else agrees with me! I 'learned' PR in the U.K. and frankly my experience there was that the quality of creativity and thought was more valuable than the structure of your sentence. (Can you even purchase the AP Stylebook in the U.K.?) Don't get me wrong – I get grammar, I like grammar even, but it's not the end all be all. I can't imagine anything worse than working on a communications plan for days only to have it returned peppered with "check AP!!!" comments. How is that communicative? And – how exactly did ONE style become gospel? As referenced in your comment regarding blogs, do readers actually recognize the difference? I write to reach an audience, to reach customers and build brand awareness – not for a copy editor to cut and paste! Great post!

You can convey a creative thought with good grammar. Good grammar is not about being snobby; it is about communicating your ideas effectively. It is sad to see that people think good grammar is just about pleasing their editor and that it has nothing to do with communicating with your audience. But the Internet is making us very lazy and sticking up for good grammar will get you shot at and run out of town on a pole. And if you even think of politely pointing out that "lose" is not spelled "loose" and that "definitely" is not spelled "definately" and that "come on" or "c'mon" is not spelled "common" you better hold your head on tight because somebody who insists on spelling wrong is likely to cut your head off.

Did you ever see the movie "Blast from the Past?" Watch it because there's a character who says, "I used to think that having good manners was about showing other people how much better you are than them. But then I learned it's really about helping others feel comfortable in your presence."

Yes! One of my favorite quotes from a very cute movie. It was the perfect embodiment (did I spell that right?) of the popular culture's perception of anything that smacks of culture and manners.

I don't agree. While we're all guilty of making careless grammatical mistakes, I think it's imperative that we strive to do the best job we can despite sinking standards.

The same could be said for manners and etiquette, quite frankly.

There are many reasons for writing with grammatical integrity, most of which have been mentioned in the comments preceding this one.

I think your blog is excellent, Penelope. Keep up the great work.

Thank you. I am so tired of business writing. There must be some room for informality somewhere in our lives. I think blogging is a good place to relax a little.

ES&L is a rather silly book. If you're actually interested in the English language, try some of these instead (links to an Amazon So You'd Like To… guide I wrote back in the day; don't worry — no affiliate links)… or take a course! If you're in a university town, they ought to offer Introduction to Linguistics or something similar through their extension department.

I honestly thought that I was the only person on Earth who LOVED diagramming sentences in elementary school. I'm so relieved to know that I'm not alone. I totally see your point, but I would say that the reason I like to use my brain power on grammar is that, for some weird reason – it's very satisfying to me. (And no need to point out how many grammar errors I'm making in my reply….maybe that's the point, right? Or maybe I'm just typing quickly…) The best analogy I can come up with is that, in my opinion, the challenge of grammar is satisfying in the same way as crossword puzzles. Of course…now I'm just proving that I'm the biggest nerd on the planet.

"What a shame some people's definition of Neanderthal stupidity extends to language usage in new and emerging fields."

Uh, I'm not confusing the two and never said anything that would imply that I am so thanks for the straw man. Both phenomena exist separately. I'm just saying one shouldn't be confused with the other. You can creatively coin a new word and you can create new vocabulary for new and emerging fields and that is great and I personally have no problem with it; in fact, I have done it myself.

You can also lazily use bad grammar, repeatedly misspell words thereby putting the onus of interpretation on the reader, not care that you are communicating poorly with others, tell people who do know how to communicate properly that they are snobs, etc. and that would constitute Neanderthal stupidity and I see it all the time, especially with the emergence of the Internet . . . and I'm not just talking about blog comments, text messages, and Tweets.

I trust you are intelligent enough to see the difference. Or, if you'd like, you can naively insist that they are the same thing.

This post has generated a lot of great discussion about grammar. Thanks for the Google doodle link. The doodle artwork and words are impressive for the kids in all age groups. I think someone from Google should be reading this post and all the comments regarding their grammar for this contest. I think Google could learn a few things. Maybe this contest is in the alpha or beta stage. Google is highly influential in many areas but they are not who I would emulate or go to for grammar or style. Maybe they should give grammar more consideration. However they won't be derailed since I'm sure ideas, creativity, and content at Google trump grammar, style, typos, etc.
P.S. – "So I know I love grammar and I know it’s not normal."
I think you have a lot of company. :)

Normal is the average of deviance. Consider it a very good thing you aren't normal in your ability to diagram sentences.

Business failures usually occur because of a weakness of some sort, not a strength, so it's not knowing good grammar that stops us, it's not knowing the difference between format and content.

Last time I checked, HTML and other programming languages had grammatical rules as well. Why? Because they're snobbish, of course.

Since I only expect to work with native speakers of American, it would be downright useless of me to learn the grammar of any other language, such as Arabic or Mandarin or Spanish.

Really, what are the chances a Gen Y person would have to deal with a computer or become an expatriate?

Lastly, a little grammar experiment —

Call me crazy, but the snob in me feels that good creative cursing requires grammatical knowledge. Vocabulary isn't enough.

"Since I only expect to work with native speakers of American"

???

I ain't never done thought grammars be countin' for much anyways.

You're correct in that proper grammar is not needed to effectively communicate ideas most of the time. However, it's easy to see a twisted cycle that rewards bad grammar and perpetuates the problem further.

If a child were to complain that he didn't like division but he was okay with adding and subtracting, would that be okay? By simply accepting bad grammar (or trying to use shorter, simpler, but less-accurate words) as a necessary step in effective communication, we're reshaping the language into something that is slowly becoming LESS effective.

Imagine if that same child was simply never taught how to divide or multiply. As an adult, he/she could do some more advanced math problems, but it would take FAR longer to use the less-effective addition/subtraction as complete substitutions.

Not everything that needs to be said or written can be done using words only found in Harry Potter books. The people who KNOW proper grammar should use it and encourage others to use it, not just toss it aside as a crusty antique.

It's also not just about maintaining something that will result in better communication in the long run. There may be few cases in the business world where casual lingo is encouraged (blogging, marketing, etc), but there's nothing that makes a business look more unprofessional than simple grammatical / spelling problems that appear to be unintended mistakes.

I'm quite sure this post has many grammar flaws, but my American upbringing has done its job, so it's rather difficult for me to tell where those flaws are. I hope that there will be some point where future generations will be far more eloquent than how we are now.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, the great Austrian philosopher of language once stated, " the limits of my language are the limits of my world".

While I do not entirely agree with this statement, language and especially grammar, do have a role to play in shaping our minds. As a European, I have had grammar classes for 9 years in English, for 7 years in Latin, and for 6 years in French, not to mention in my native language, German. This adds up to an absurd amount of grammar classes. I do not remember a word of Latin, and my French is not pitch-perfect, but I have found that it has helped me tremendously to develop a sharp and very analytical mind, enabling me to gauge and understand the mark-up and the meaning of a phrase/text much faster. Learning grammar is equivalent to building a solid infrastructure for your brain, a highway network for the mind, so to speak.

HOWEVER: Has the European obsession with correct grammar helped us to come up with innovative ideas or to build a more vibrant economy? No. I tend to agree that this is because our thinking does not leave the comfortable highways of our mind and we have little desire to travel off the beaten path – why else would Latin still be part of our standard highscool curriculum?

Keep in mind, that you write towards things that make you look better. You're feeding your ego instead of providing accurate, worthy advice.

typose are extremely distracting. So sentence structure. If you not have those in paragraphs than reading someones writing becomes very difficult. But I guess well all have to take your advice and go with it.

Keep in mind, the only reason we can speak and write with rhythm is because of a flow in our sentence structure and recognizing the spelling of words that we are taught. So in reality, if you want people to become frustrated with your writing and choose not to continue to read it, then yes, typos and grammar aren't necessary. But if you want people to like what they read and be able to focus on that instead of your spelling and grammar typos, then it might be important for you to take a close look at sentence structure and to check every word.

Penelope, I'm surprised that you're saying you read your work out loud to hear the dialogue, yet you're telling your readers it isn't important.

Wow who would have thought a debate could rage over this … if only we all paid this much attention and cared to this extent with regards global warming maybe we'd be making a difference and the ice would not be melting …

Because obviously global warming is the only thing we should ever focus on and because, clearly, we can solve global warming in the amount of time it takes to make a few blog comments.

Opps nearly spelt grammar wrong …crucificion at sunset

No, you didn't spell "grammar" wrong but you did spell "Oops" wrong, and in a way that would change its pronunciation. But that's okay because it's in a blog comment and not something you are presenting professionally. Not that you should purposely misspell words in blog comments but even the people here who are proponents of good grammar and spelling cut you (and themselves) some slack in this arena…

"Learning grammar is equivalent to building a solid infrastructure for your brain, a highway network for the mind, so to speak."

Exactly.

"Has the European obsession with correct grammar helped us to come up with innovative ideas or to build a more vibrant economy? No."

But the solution is not to throw grammar rules out the window (we also don't know that your assertion is true that one little factor such as "grammar rules" is thwarting European creativity; that's a pretty big leap in logic there). Even the people here who are saying grammar rules are stupid are still expressing their thoughts with rudimentary rules whether they realize it or not. Why are they still clinging to those rules? Why don't they free themselves up even more? Aren't they wise enough to use no rules whatsoever? Perhaps they could express their thought in a comment with simply an explanation point or a chevron or an asterisk or a pipe and leave it up to us even more to figure out what they are getting at?

!︾*|

Point taken. Of course it's a generalisation, and I meant in no way to say that our attitude towards grammar accounts for our GDP. But I see it as an example of how we Europeans tend to reason, e.g. that your ability to master the conjugation of all Latin verbs in all 5 possible tenses + conjunctive will define your success in life, instead of enjoying reading ancient texts and asking ourselves what they could teach us today. I am a German student in France and and it has been a recurrent experience of mine that good ideas were simply ignored because I used the wrong preposition. In the US I felt – indeed -, free, because people were interested in WHAT I had to say.

Nevertheless, I am a fan of grammar and nothing makes me more angry than the sloppiness of native speakers, not only because it devalues the years and years I have spent in sweaty classrooms, trying my best to get it perfectly right.

"Since I only expect to work with native speakers of American"

Surely another pearl of wisdom expressed here.

"Point taken. Of course it's a generalisation, and I meant in no way to say that our attitude towards grammar accounts for our GDP."

No worries. I don't want to put the weight of the world on a quickly written comment.

"First, considerations of how one ought to behave should not be limited to how they serve one's career plans."

Remember that this is the "Brazen Careerist" blog.

There is a way to proofread your own work – taught to me by a wonderful editor many years ago. Start at the bottom of your work – and then read each sentence – one at a time from the bottom to the top. It forces you to read what is really there, rather than what is supposed to be there. I've found this method to be very effective.

"If people only get jobs through internal connections then what is the point of having an HR department screening
resumes and cover letters for typos? It's a great excuse to weed out potentially great canidates for stupid reasons."

You bring up a good point. I think that quite often a company will shoot itself in the foot by eliminating a "canidate" for some flimsy reason such as one typo on their resume when the position applied for may have nothing to do with writing skills and the company will pride themselves on what sticklers they are. But that does not therefore mean that purposely ignoring rules of grammar and spelling is a good idea.

When did Google become the standard against which to judge grammar? That's like basing your ethical barometer on politicians because a lot of people voted for them.

I also disagree with the author's suggestion that the downfall of the newspaper industry is somehow tied to typos — what springs to mind is a certainly grammatically incorrect "huh?"

There's a definite difference between writing for promotional, entertainment, advertising, etc. vs. professional writing. The failing of newspapers lies in their shift of writing more for entertainment purposes than for actual newsworthiness. As such, they are in competition with sensationalist writers like this author who have no ethical, moral, or legal obligations to adhere to facts maintaining the integrity of a story. Instead of espousing whatever whimsy of opinion strikes you as appropriately confrontational……thus increasing readership……eliciting more opinion-based debate…….and having zero substantive value.

What's killing the newspapers? You are. And the sheep who look to the wolf pretending to write the news.

"What's killing the newspapers? You are. And the sheep who look to the wolf pretending to write the news."

Bravo, Kathy. Good grammar isn't killing the newspapers – it's an outdated business model that can't hold the attention span of the twenty and thirty somethings who use facebook, twitter, and text messages to have their "news" delivered to them. The newspaper industry would be "booming" if it allowed typos? Are you kidding me? Penelope, did you read that out loud to yourself after you wrote it?

Jeff

your awesome

"not especially tolerant- you'll enjoy life more if you can hear the message over the rules. Life is poetry."

Another person entirely misunderstanding what I have been saying. You're like somebody saying, "Don't teach me how to hang glide. I want to just jump off a cliff and flap my arms and fly and be free. If you try to teach me the proper way to hang glide that just shows how intolerant you are. It's people like you who think things can only be done one way that are ruining the world and stifling free expression."

Are you aware that you yourself are using grammatical rules to convey your thoughts? According to your own line of thinking your usage of grammatical rules is preventing you from hearing the message over the rules.

and yes I did mispell someone and noticed it after the submit button.

You've actually heard people pronounce the word "comma"? They actually pronounce their punctuation. That's bizarre.

Victor Borge explains his Phonetic Punctuation system (scroll down a little for link to the audio)

You have a lovely way of discussing writing!

You're certainly right about "more than," but I can't find an entry in the AP Stylebook that calls for anything other than "the one that…"

The expression "one that" appears many times in the AP Stylebook online, but "one which" does not show up in a search.

The entry on essential clauses and nonessential clauses contains the AP's advice to use "that" in sentences like the one in the Google example.

There is another kind of error in the passage, however — a squinting reference. "One" could refer to either one drawing or one child.

Will one drawing appear on the homepage, or one child?

(And the AP, reckless of the space taken by the added space, spells "home page" as two words.)

If anyone is starved for grammar practice, try the 2000+ free exercises at newsroom101.com.

Ok, perhaps you can't give 100 per cent to everything. And sure, not everyone needs to have perfect grammar.
BUT, Penelope – you are a professional writer! Professional writers MUST get it right – regardless of whether it's a book, newspaper or blogging site.
If you want people to read your work, then it is essential that your work must be accurate – and the very best it can be. It's not good enough to say, oh it's only 80 per cent because I'm too busy doing 1000 other more important things.
Otherwise go do something else where it doesn't matter (eg professional volleyball).
And, as a journalist and copy editor (we call it a sub-editor in Australia) I would not hire anyone with a typo in their resume. If a professional writer doesn't care 100 per cent, I don't care for them.
Do it right or don't do it at all.

My fourth grade teacher said that when you open your
mouth or write a paper, people can tell how educated you are (or not educated, as the case may be). You decide how you want to be perceived.

However, my mind is boggled by the number of people who (claim to be) are college educated and spell these two words (in my experience at least) wrong 99 times out of 100. Seriously.

The two words?

They are :

definitely (which I ALWAYS see spelled definately…WTH?)

and truly (which I don't see as often, but the fact that I see it at all is
scary to me, is spelled truely…WTF????)

I've spoken about this before (I think even in this thread); I simply cannot figure out for the life of me why people think "definitely" is spelled "definately." Where in the world did that come from? And why have I seen it literally hundreds of times from people who are supposedly native English speakers? I cut non-native English speakers slack but I actually think they spell this word correctly, or at least mangle it so bad that you know they are sincerely trying but at least haven't convinced themselves that a wrong spelling is the correct one. And the one common misspelling I see even more is people spelling "lose" as "loose." This happens so often that it is becoming an institutionalized misspelling and blurring with the real definition of the real word "loose." I would love to hear an explanation (somebody . . . anybody!) why these two misspellings happen sooooooo much.

I think it's because lose has a long sound but short letters, whereas loose has a short sound but long letters- people expect to find a long sound reflected with the double "o"- hence they mix the two up. As for definitely vs definately this is a pronounciation issue- clear pronunciation always helps with spelling, but lots of people lack clear diction.

I guess I see the erosion of proper grammar in serious communication as another small indication of decay in civilization. It's kind of like the first broken window in an abandoned house. Or running stop signs and red lights (less dangerous, though, of course).

Oh look, there's a typo in my previous post. Ah, so what? Saying that newspapers are failing because they care more about good grammar than good ideas would be like me saying that newspapers are failing because your column appears in more than 200. It's a spurious connection (not an ironic one).

This is just another example of Penelope pandering to the "Gen Y" population, most of whom could not achieve a passing grade in an elementary school English class. If you must attempt to write, at least make an honest attempt to write well, and keep a dictionary(preferably a pre-1980's edition) and a thesaurus handy. Bad grammar is like a virus, and the internet is the perfect system for its delivery. All this blathering on about the message vs. the correctness of the delivery is just a cover-up for laziness and a poor education. I too am very suspicious about the validity of the content if the expression of the content is sub-standard. It's discouraging to find that those for whom English is not their native language have a far greater command of the language than the children who are born and raised in an English-speaking country, such as the United States. It is another sign of our seemingly inevitable descent to third-world status.

The fact that "eduspeak" intimidates parents explains why teachers exist, and why most parents don't teach. Those parents who are intimidated are poorly educated and it is their children who are most in need of quality language education. "Talking down" to parents is just another facet of "dumbing down" our schools, pandering to the lowest common denominator. Under those guidelines, sooner or later, everyone is a trash-talking illiterate.

I wouldn't say that all parents who are intimidated are poorly educated and illiterate…but there is a level of "higher" speech in every industry that can confound anyone unfamilliar with the industry.
When my mother and my niece (both nurses) get together and begin "med-chatting", I lose track of parts of the conversation, and I have a Master's degree…but in education.

Marty

I see your point. I don't agree with it, and I think there is definitely something to be said for speaking and writing language appropriately, but I see it.

But I think the reasoning behind it, if you can call it reasoning, is that it's simply not worth the effort to sweat over an email for 30 minutes to make sure it's written properly, when you have another 5 to get back to. It's easier and more effective to just crank out the first thing that comes to mind, use the built in spell-check if there is one, click 'Send' and move on.

On the other extreme though is writing emails in IM speak. If I received an email from a professional colleague that read like "omg ur sooo rit," I'd reconsider my relationship with them immediately.

I did a html copywriting course a while back. You'd be suprised at how different people's readin habbits are online. I still haven't grasped it fully

Marie-Laure, you have actually have pretty good spelling and grammar. There were a couple minor errors, but overall you did great for a non-native English speaker.

I would say grammar has a huge role to play even when speaking/writing to people who do possess a good command of the language.

I love, love, love grammar. I am definitely lightening up the older I get. I never correct anyone (except my husband, a foreigner, and my son, a student).

I moved to Sweden fresh out of college and immediately began studying Swedish. I learned in a jiffy, mostly due to the fact that I understood my own grammar so well.

You can bet that if you don't know the intrinsic difference between 'affect' and 'effect,' between 'its' and 'it's,' or between 'there,' 'their,' and 'they're,' you're going to have a much harder time learning a new language.

So let's not get too lazy. It's ok to love grammar. I'm just sayin'…

I found this post to be contradictory. If you know so much about grammar, why wouldn't you use it? Sort of like learning a foreign language but never speaking it. Grammar is easy, in the vast scheme of things; getting facts right can be hard. So if you can't even be bothered to get the easy things right, like grammar and spelling (the spellchecker is telling you it's wrong–why ignore it?), why should readers trust you to get the facts right?

I think it's hard for most people to focus on grammar at that level when they are struggling with putting together a sentence that (or which?) isn't full of typos. But that could be the career counselor in me projecting after years of reviewing poorly written cover letters.

"Most grammar rules don't matter"! I emphatically disagree. Especially when Penelope herself realises the value of at least the cardinal tenets of grammatically correct language by referring to 'East, Shoots and Leaves'. If we choose to at least go by the rules set out in that book, that would do all of us a world of good as to communicating clearly.

"noone" looks less elegant than "tomorrow" because it jams two of the same letters together (the two instances of "o") and because each of those two letters has a different pronunciation. It's not like the word "noon" where the two vowels are the same but blend together to make one vowel sound.

What about cooperate (which is the standard US spelling) vs older spellings co-operate or
coöperate?

I believe that many complaints about a spelling being less "elegant" or "logical" are really just complaints about "that's not how I learned it!".

Me not you agree at. Not you right! not you right!

Good grammar, wow I think I can not good at this point before I read this post.
Thank you very much.

"Find me a sentence with the wrong version of it’s that you can’t understand due to the error. Wait. No. Forget it. Because you can’t."

The doctor examined the patient with an injured eye.

Who has the injured eye? Hmmm looks like I can find such a sentence. That was pretty easy. It was an example we used in my college AI class about why it's difficult for computers to understand human speech.

Good grammar never gets in the way of communication.

I stumbled across your blog and have had the opportunity to read a few of your posts and am impressed. What I found interesting here was your statement, "The irony is that most people who are great at the rules and details of grammar do not have great social skills…"

I work with someone regularly that definitely fits the bill. I've taken a beating on some of the writing I've done and this helped put it in perspective…thank you!

No, but it would help anyone detail-oriented to learn how, and when, not to focus so much on them.

I am borderline Asperger's myself, so I know how absorbing they can be. But the plain fact is that they are the trees people can't see the forest for.

Like anything, real mastery involves learning the rules, then forgetting you know them.

Just don't let typo one onto that resumé. They'll take any excuse to $#!!can it these days.

I really wanted to say that I don't agree with this article, that I think good grammar is important and that it's really quite sad to think of it being replaced by blog and SMS text message language… But then I realized I'm not perfect at grammar and I'm probably making a lot of mistakes in what I'm writing right now.

Grammar reveals nothing of the cost of one's education, but everything about the amount of importance, concentration and dedication one attaches to it. OTOH, poor grammar and usage skills in paid, public writing by an otherwise educated person demonstrates a level of incompetency in those doing the hiring.

But why is being good at grammar more important than, say, having good social skills?

Because people are going to wonder why your boss hired someone off the short bus to send out the company newsletter, for starters, and then they're going to get the funny idea in their head that they're more qualified for the job you talked your way into without having any actual skill. And that (yes, I know that's a broken rule) is going to lead to all kinds of funky places.

Sars has the right of it: You don't have to know how to spell everything in the dictionary, and you don't have to have the serial-semicolon rule embroidered on a pillow, but if you have reached voting age in the United States, you need to know the basics of English usage, because if you don't, you look like an idiot.

Gads, I haven't been back here for a while, but I'm really surprised this poor horse hasn't long since been beaten to death.
The way I see it, making some of the more esoteric grammatical errors is fairly common, perhaps even acceptable under certain circumstances. But if you can't tell the difference between loose and lose, there, their, and they're, you are just not going to be credible, no matter how much you may actually know about a given subject.
Poor grammar and spelling, and how you use language, are a lot like table manners: you can tell right off what circles one has traveled in, how sophisticated one is. I'm as distrustful of snobs as I am of pinheads, but that's the hard truth. It's the same as the old saw: "you are defined by the company you keep."
Steve C.

Most people have the ability to correct the errors in their work but very few make the effort to. Most people relying on grammar editors to act as the second pair of eyes for corrections.

I find that, especially when writing online, good grammar might distance people from your content. If you are too prim and proper about what you are writing it wont work. People go online for information because they want to get to it fast, read it fast and easily understand it.

I'll wholeheartedly second Christian on this. So many times I've been frustrated by SMS-style language, all capitals or the absence of puncutation on emails, blogs & even websites which totally hamper reading. This is besides grammatically wrong and/or nonsensical words and expressions which take quite a while to decipher.