Getting the right word in the right place

Friday, 05 June 2009 08:51 Written by Andrew Halloway

In conversation you can get away with most wrong choices of words because most people understand what you mean. But written communication isn't so forgiving.

When you're talking to someone and use the wrong word, he or she hears the whole sentence and so understands what you meant to say because of the context in which it was said. Whoever you're talking to assumes it was a slip of the tongue, or thinks they misheard you - so they don't mind. And when you're communicating verbally you don't have to spell anything right, just pronounce it right!

But these days, we do more written communication than verbal, particularly email and texting, but also the occasional letter or comps slip, plus promotional literature like brochures and leaflets, adverts, press releases, etc.

In texting, it's expected that you'll abbreviate everything and everyone knows that predictive text makes some strange predictions! But in emails, you can make yourself look careless or stupid, and that's bad for your image - which is bad your business, charity or mission.

Even if you're a volunteer worker, not expected to be professional, you can still end up hampering your communication if you don't get things right. Mistakes cause confusion and annoyance. 

It's even worse if you go into print with mistakes - whether it's brochures, newsletters, leaflets, etc. Sometimes the error means you have to waste money printing it all over again - if it's caught before you send it out. And if it's not spotted before going public with it, you could make your organisation a laughing stock.

Even in the era when Microsoft Word underlines wrong spellings for you, and when Outlook has an Always Check Spelling Before Sending option, people still make loads of mistakes.

Your spellchecker will solve a lot of problems SO DO REMEMBER TO USE IT. But many mistakes involve using a rightly spelled word in the wrong context, which spellcheckers don't always pick up. Microsoft Word's spellchecker claims to pick up grammar errors as well, but in reality it fails to pick up many usage errors like these - and in addition it tells you to correct things that don't need correcting, which just makes things worse!

So, next time I'll fill you in on '10 mistakes that make you look stupid'...