Saturday, June 5, 2010

Writing Good

I was reading a friend's business website today and saw a grammar error.  Immediately my inner alarm rang and my mental red pen circled the problem.  Halfway to writing an email to her, I stopped myself, realizing that it might not be received well.  This is growth, friends.

As a child, my mom always corrected my poor grammar in a loving way (just to clarify).  There is no such thing as funner.  Things can't be more better. He and I can go to a game, but they have to throw the ball to him and me.  You are well; you look good. With my affinity for language, I soaked up these corrections and Mom and I together became the Grammar Police correcting all errors on television, magazines, and the like (cue super hero music and capes).  I remember bringing papers home from the teachers at school and my mom correcting their mistakes and sending them back to school with me.  The thought process behind that being that she would be mortified by an error in a letter she sent home to her students' parents (my mom is a teacher), and she wanted to help my teachers so that they wouldn't recycle their letters, and thus, the mistakes, for a new set of parents.  I was raised that correcting the grammar mistakes of someone you know is a way you show that you care about them so that they will speak and write intelligently and not embarrass themselves (as opposed to mocking someone you don't know, like the waitress holding a glass and asking, "Is this any of your guys's drinks?" That's gold, Jerry.  Gold.). 

This history has produced me, the amalgam of word nerdliness and love-your-neighbor-through-grammar-rules religion.  And it is therefore with affection and concern that I want to email my friend about her sentence.  I am hesitant, though, that I will come off as offensive or snobby when all I want to do is to help her be as professional as possible.  So what do you think?  Should I chill out or should I tell her?  What would a normal person's reaction be?

Note: I have given  permission for my mom to email me with mistakes she sees on this blog.  To date, I have made five corrections.  (By the way, Mom, the title was on purpose. Please don't email me.)

5 comments:

  1. If it's a business website - by all means send it. I would be concerned that my business is being represented poorly by a grammatical error, and I would hope that she would feel the same.

    Incidentally, the hotel I'm staying at in CA has a sign for "VENIDING" machines. I pointed this out last time I stayed here, and yet - 6 months later, it is still here!

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  2. i always feel the need to correct my fiance's grammar and he haaaaates it! i totally see your point in that we want to save them from embarrassment/looking stupid...given all that you pointed out, i'd say YES!! send the email, but then include a paragraph explaining yourself...

    (i wonder if you're correcting the grammar errors in this comment.)hah!

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  3. are we allowed to email you about punctuation errors in your own post?!!?

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  4. I would want to know if it were my website (is it my website?).

    I think the best course of action is to let the person know you're a grammar diva and that you noticed a minor error. Then I would ask if they would like to know what you discovered.

    Leave the ball in their court.

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  5. AH!! I found one glaring error after I read your comment Becka!! haha I fixed what I found, but there may be more! I'm much better at word usage than punctuation - I think I use commas too much for sure.

    The funny thing is that I proofread this blog about four times and I still missed it! Oh, the value of peer editing. So yes, email me! =)

    And thanks to you all for your thoughts. I think I will send her a quick note. =)

    Kel, I totally laughed out loud!

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