The Illiteracy of Corporate American E-Mail

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."

Comments

How they become?

[fembots]

How did these employees get into the company door in the first place? Didn't they have to write some sort of CV that their employers can understand? Or are they gradually getting worse in the corporate/email environment?

P.S. This are one of the Slashdot articles that I am so worrifiedably scared to be picked at by one of these Spelling/Grandma Nazis.

Re:How they become?

[eln]

A lot of people usually get a lot of help writing their resumes. Once they get into the workforce, there is a prevailing myth among the plebes that spelling and grammar don't matter, as long as the message is right. However, this ignores the fact that bad spelling and grammar can severely impact the coherency of any message, as well as hurting the credibility of the author.

There have been several times when advertising departments at places I've worked have let huge glossies and other very visible ads get all the way through printing with major spelling and grammatical errors. How can anyone take a company seriously if it looks like everyone at that company is illiterate?

Re:How they become?

[mordors9]

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.

Re:How they become?

[RealAlaskan]

... bad spelling and grammar can severely impact the coherency of any message, as well as hurting the credibility of the author.

When I was teaching econ, I several times made the mistake of setting an essay test. It showed that the American students couldn't write. When I marked them down for incomprehensiblity, they were shocked! ``You should grade the econ, not the grammer.'' they said. Unfortunately, the grammer and organization was bad enough that there wasn't any coherent content to grade.

Some of them did know the material, but it doesn't matter what you know, if you can't communicate it clearly to others. If you can't communicate, you might as well know nothing, because that's what everyone will assume.

By contrast, some students for whom English was a second language had grammer problems, but their writing was coherent enough that I could figure out what they meant.

Re:How they become?

[Finuvir]

Sloppy writing implies carelessness at best, ineptitude at worst. It's not okay to write badly in a business setting; at least not in inter-business communication.

Re:How they become?

[asr_man]

...bad spelling and grammar can severely impact the coherency of any message, as well as hurting the credibility of the author.

"Hurting" above is incorrect. To agree with "impact" it should be "hurt":

Bad spelling and grammar can (do two things...#1:) severely impact...(and #2:) hurt...

But since this forum doesn't support editing, we'll forgive you.

The Grammar Nazis

Re:How they become?

[cduffy]

On the other hand, if the intended recipient is "careless", and by "careless" you really mean lazy or too busy to write in complete sentences, but the intended recipient still understands the message then who cares?

The recipient, for one.

I may be able to interpret poorly written English, but that's not to say it's enjoyable. Presentation errors not only make the individual committing them look bad, but also take away focus from the actual content.

I expect people communicating with me in a business context to make a reasonable effort to communicate clearly in much the same way that I would be offended if a coworker chose to give me messages scribbled in sloppily written crayon: Poor presentation distracts from the content. The scribbled memo would needlessly require extra time to read and interpret; likewise do poorly spelled messages.

Another aspect that falls out of the above is one of respect. Since comprehending sloppily-written messages takes more time and effort, writing well is nothing less than displaying respect for the value of the time of one's readers, whereas writing poorly is stating that your time and effort is more valuable than that of the individual to whom you send your message. I make a serious effort to do this when writing material for others' consumption; consequently, I find it only reasonable for others to respond in kind.

Thankfully those silly social norms have not yet been applied to emails yet.

They should and do. People who send poorly written email (particularly mass mailings) are genuinely and rightly offensive, for all the reasons above.

Re:How they become?

[1u3hr]

why should you waste an extra 20 seconds checking your grammar?

1) So the recipient doesn't have to spend 20 seconds trying to work out what your meant, or wasting both his and your time by replying asking for a clarification.
2) So people don't think you're a moron.
3) So people outside the company don't think you're all morons (if the message is forwarded, as often happens, sometimes inadvertently).

Anything you write, anywhere, can come back to haunt you.

Conspicuously...

[MoxCamel]

This wasn't posted by CmdrTaco. I'm just saying.

Mox

All because of vatican 2

[yorkpaddy]

See what happens when you stop saying mass in Latin.

Re:I'd be happy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is not.

If people could just learn to write their replies BELOW what they're quoting. Top posting is just wrong.

My personal favorite

[Anonymous Crowhead]

The subject line email:

Subject: COULD YOU SEND ME THAT MEMO
Body: (empty)

In case it's slashdotted:

[Anonymous Coward]

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Very Inprofesional

[Lieutenant_Dan]

I find it lidicrous how people making 100000$ or more a year, just canot spell or at least use the spelchecker.

It's a disgracement.

Re:Very Inprofesional

[porkUpine]

I wish I could mod your post +1 (Sad but True). Our CFO sends out company wide emails that make no sense at all. I often wonder how she was able to (lie/cheat/steal) her way into that position. It is embarrassing when the CFO of a 1+Billion dollar a year company cannot tell the difference between patience/patients or capitol/capital. Now, I'm not perfect... but I also don't send out company wide email very often. When I do have to send out email to others in the company I do this old fashioned thing called "Proof-reading". *sigh* (sad but true)

Illiterate? Or just unprofessional?

[beeplet]

It seems like there are two separate possible problems here: people are coming into a company without the writing skills they need, and/or employees are not treating email communication with the same professionalism as other company documents.

For the first problem, either a) don't hire people who can't write, or b) provide on-the job training to bring writing skills up to an acceptable level.

For the second, I think the company needs to make a clear set of standards for both internal and external communication, and enforce them. External communication - to customers, etc. - is particularly important. Anything as badly written as those examples would be deleted from my inbox before I got to the end of the first sentence.

I used to work as a technical writer for a large company, and they kept us busy. It's fine to hire engineers who are good at what they do, even if they don't have great writing skills - as log as you also hire someone to decipher and rewrite everything that comes out of the engineering dept.

PS. I respectfully submit that the headline should read either "The illegibility of email" or "The illiteracy of corporate america"... I might try to make my email literary, but not literate (and my slashdot posts are probably neither...) :)

Spell Czech

[Easy2RememberNick]

Eye halve a spelling chequer. It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marques four my revue miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word and weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write. It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid. It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite. Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it. I am shore your pleased two no.
Its letter perfect in it's weight. My chequer tolled me sew.

Sauce Unknown

(Reader's Digest.)

Holy crap!

[wolfemi1]

Corporate American e-mail can't read?

1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d

[Triumph The Insult C]

s0? irc rul3z. ema!l iz 4 lam3rz n3way

Re:I filtered out all the crap

[cephyn]

Wow, there was a Welsh version of the site?

Re:I'd be happy

[cain]

If people could just learn to I prefer replying
write their replies BELOW on the SIDE of
what they're quoting. what I am quoting, myself.
Top posting is just wrong. Side posting r00ls, w00t!!

What scares me

[mindstrm]

is that I can read that quite fluently.

spelling and grammar?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

clicky
The geniuses suceeded in publishing a report with a map on the front which just had a gap where Wales should have been.
Stuff Spelling and Grammar, 3 million people and a few billion sheep just ceased to exist!

To her, it probably was correct...

[EvilStein]

After all, Outlook automatically corrects your spelling for you as you type.

"patience" is spelled correctly. In context, it's probably the wrong word, but it's still spelled correctly.

I've seen that happen quite a few times - people relying on the Outlook/Word spellchecked and it corrects their email by inserting correctly spelled, but irrelevant words.
The CxO drones don't even notice it.

Grammer?

[Cybertect]

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

Ode to a Spell Checker

[pipingguy]

Someone other than me originally wrote this. My apologies to non-native English-speakers, as this is bound to do some brane damage to those that do their best to try to comprehend:

I have a spelling checker.
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh,
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when aye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed to bee a joule.
The checker poured ore every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Be fore a vailing checkers
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if were lacks o'er have a laps,
We wood bee maid to wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know faults with in my cite,
Of nun aye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped words fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should be proud.
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaws are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft ware for pea seas,
And why I brake in two averse
When righting what aye pleas.

Politics and the English Language

[gidds]

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.

True story

[windowpain]

I'm an independent film producer. For my latest shoot I placed an ad on Craig's List. Here's a reply I got:

"hello, i am a freelance makeup artist who is also a film student. i have worked on many productions in the philadelphia area including film, video, commercial, print etc.. i would love to work on your project. give ma a call @ 267-nnn-nnnn. thank you
Christy McCabe"

My reply:

"Hello,

I appreciate your interest in Dangerous Movies. We're hip, we're independent and we're unconventional. We have no confidence, however, in people who do not know enough to use proper grammar in business correspondence. The rules for capitalization have not been repealed. And it's obvious you did not proofread your email before sending it out. If you're that careless in trying to get the gig, how careful are you going to be on the job?

I hope you accept this advice in the spirit in which it was given: not to put you down, but to educate you."

Her reply to my reply:

"you are a complete asshole. it is common knowledge that when sending an e mail, all rules of capitalization are thrown out the window. thank you for saving me from having to work on a shitty movie with a bunch of pompous assholes such as yourself. i hope your movie never makes any money.
fuck off."

I'm afraid Miss McCabe's attitude is not unusual among young people these days. She's not merely ignorant. She's indignant when someone is kind enough to try to help her out. Not to mention vulgar and hateful.