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The Illiteracy of Corporate American E-Mail

Posted by michael on from the ask-not-for-whom-the-spellchecker-tolls dept.

Dave writes "There is a pretty amusing/sad article about functional illiteracy when it comes to professional e-mails. Some of the samples are just ridiculous."

4 of 1,267 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How they become? by mordors9 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work for a fairly large corporation and supervise a group of people. I used to think the spelling mistakes were just typing errors, that all of the grammatical mistakes and punctuation errors were just laziness. Don't get me wrong, I mistype words occasionally and I certainly do not always use perfect grammar. But, I see an awful lot of emails and reports that are nearly incomprehensible. I have also come to the conclusion that an awful lot of people really do not know how to spell or have a basic understanding of grammar. I guess further evidence that our public education system is failing miserably.

  2. Again, Dijkstra said it best. by devphil · · Score: 4, Informative


    IMHO, if an engineer is imprecise in his language, in any medium, he will be imprecise in other more important areas.

    Just a couple weeks ago this comment made sense, and hey, now it makes sense even more.

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    You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
  3. Grammer? by Cybertect · · Score: 5, Informative

    Perhaps it's just another Americanism, but over here in England we spell it 'grammar' :)

  4. Politics and the English Language by gidds · · Score: 5, Informative
    While I heartily agree with all the posters deploring the current state of English as she is typed, I think the problems are deeper than just spelling and grammar. While they are the most obvious problems -- the easiest to spot, criticise, and correct -- if people aren't thinking clearly, then no amount of elegant grammar and immaculate spelling will convert their muddled ideas into clear and direct text.

    The author George Orwell wrote an article about this in 1945; I find it a very interesting read, and probably even more relevant today. (It seems remarkably prescient in many respects.) It's called Politics and the English Language, but don't let the title put you off: it's not about politics per se, just about how writers (mis)use English in various types of writing, political and otherwise.

    It's online in many places, for example here and here. Well worth a read.

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