I have said it a thousand times:
“12:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. do not exist.”
“4.30 is a price, not the time.”
“Americans spell with Z, the British with S. We use the British spelling”
“No commas before the word ‘and’ in simple sentences.”
The artists groan when I cause them to return to the files to correct these copy errors.
Why the fuss you wonder? 12:00 pm is seen all over the place. Thanks to the auto correct feature in Microsoft Word, almost every official document has American spelling in it. For the most part, the misuse of grammar and spelling provides a chuckle to the more literate. Unfortunately, these errors are sometimes no laughing matter as they can hurt the pocket.
What I thought was unpoverty really was U.N. Poverty
Recently on CNN, there was a feature on misspelling and how it can hurt business, especially internet based business. The guest said that when the consumer sees spelling errors, doubt is raised. People do not feel it is safe to use their credit card information on a site where there is bad spelling. The guest went on to say that they had experienced this trend first hand. He said that when they just started their online business, the word “style” was written in error as “sytle”. They were getting orders but when the mistake was realised and corrected, sales went up by some 40%. He went on to jokingly mention the money they had lost before the change.
This mistrust happens not only in the virtual world. I remember a similar situation happening many years ago before there was the internet . My brother had received a letter from a company in England he had written to asking about their product (or service. I can’t remember). There were spelling errors in that letter and my brother went no further with that company. He thought that, “This is from England, the home of English!”
So despite continually having to correct documents that have been auto corrected into American spelling and to harp on about 12:00 being a median point, I will do what I am here to do – get it right for the sake of the client.
