Your copy’s a reflection of your company. Make sure it does you credit.
October 29, 2020 § Leave a comment

Your copy is a reflection of your company and how you work.
If your website is littered with mistakes, potential customers will worry that your work is slapdash too.
The same goes for anything else you use to spread awareness of your company – sales letters, social media posts, ad campaigns. It’s vital to iron out any problems with punctuation, spelling and typos.
People will judge you on your copy, make sure it does you credit.
Why write ‘your’ when you mean you’re…
October 9, 2020 § Leave a comment

Why would you do that! Why would you write your when you mean you’re? It’s a grammatical crime and it’s not too difficult a rule of the written language to get right – so get it right!!
Your = belonging to you. You’re = contraction of you are. I’m pretty sure most people know that. I’m aware that a lot of people get it wrong, though. Why? Stuff like that matters to your reputation.
Many of the potential customers of a company will have spent the seconds it takes to learn the difference between the two spellings. So imagine what they feel when they see a company telling customers: ‘Your welcome’.
Your/you’re is a particular bugbear of mine – as is: to, too and two. It annoys me when people get them wrong because we’re hardly talking the subtleties of the written language here. They are regular, everyday words that you can’t be forgiven for getting wrong.
Also, for good measure, I’ll throw in there, they’re and their. ‘Over there, they’re looking at their shopping.’ The words have different meanings, different spellings but just happen to sound the same…
If people see you making sloppy mistakes in your copy, they’ll straight away wonder what sloppy mistakes you make in your business. It’s as simple as that (and not its as simple as that!)
Don’t ever rely on your spellcheck
November 24, 2016 § Leave a comment
I’m surprised I even had to write that headline – I thought everyone knew. Spellchecks are helpful – I use them as a guide – but if I left it at that, it would be corporate suicide.
I was chatting to a friend about this the other day and her reaction was: “Yes, you couldn’t afford any errors – being in the ‘words’ game.” That’s true. If I made mistakes people would be quick to point them out.
On the other hand she’s a gift retailer and her communications output is critical to her business, particularly at this time of the year when customers will be looking for Christmas presents.
She always sends an invite to a list of her customers with a message that says something like:
- Come along for an evening of wine, mince ties and a chance to buy gifts for your nearest and dearest, hopping at leisure.
Although only something like that because it actually reads:
- Come along for an evening of wine, mince pies and a chance to buy gifts for your nearest and dearest, shopping at leisure.
The point I’m making, is that a spellcheck wouldn’t have picked up any spelling mistakes in the first sentence because there aren’t any. The sentence just doesn’t make sense and it takes a human brain to work that out, not a computer.
In short, a spellcheck can tell you when a word is spelt incorrectly but not when it’s used incorrectly. Use it but know its limitations.
Spot the Typos
March 17, 2015 § Leave a comment
Here’s a piece of text with 10 typos. See if you can spot them all.
How to complain with class
There are some people who are never satisfied and who kick off at every opportunity. Then there are those who are as silent as a stealth bomber but when they blow, they really loose their rage.
Always try to be the latter. If you cry wolf to often people won’t listen when theres a real emergency. First stop and count to 10. Do you have ground for complaint? Be very friendly, present the problem and ask what they can do to assist you. You don’t want to alienate your target. Get them to empathize.
Complain in a slow, low voice. If you start at a screach you’ll have nothing to work up to. Never get too irate and don’t lose the sight of the fact that your the victim. Always get the name of the person who is not assisting you and ensure them you will be contacting their boss.
When you’ve noted down your answers, you can check them here