For the human species to communicate with one another, we need two things: a vocabulary, and some grammar. (Otherwise we degenerate to using rude hand gestures!) Together, these create our language.
Our vocabulary, or collection of words, provides us with the building blocks of our language. That’s why it’s important to understand fully what words mean and also to be able to spell them correctly.
However, as many builders know, it’s all very well having the right building blocks to create a wall, but there’s a bit of cement required in order to hold it all together. This is where the grammar comes in. Once the rules of grammar have been applied, our ‘language wall’ will stand without any further support and remain robust. But if you make grammatical mistakes the language wall is weakened in a way that could cause it to collapse. That might sound dramatic, but you only need to read Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss to see how a missing comma can make a huge difference to the meaning of a sentence!
Correct grammar, spelling and punctuation are important when you’re talking to friends and colleagues or sending emails to friends. But they become even more important when you’re preparing business correspondence – emails, letters, reports, minutes. In the first place, you don’t want to be seen as ignorant or uneducated. But, more importantly, if you do make mistakes it could lead to all kind of problems.
Just imagine if you say:
‘We have not received the order’ when what you really mean is ‘We have now received the order’. An easy mistake to make – and one that your spell checker won’t pick up!
One of the most common mistakes that we come across is when students use incomplete sentences. They don’t include a subject or they miss out the verb. This often means that the sentence doesn’t make sense or it doesn’t really mean anything.
Another mistake is when people don’t use enough paragraphs in written work. Paragraphs break up the text and each one should contain just a single point or idea. This means they make the letter or report easier to read and provide white space on the page or screen which is more restful for the readers’ eyes.
I can’t stress how important it is to write clearly, concisely and grammatically if you want to be taken seriously in the business world. But before I leave you, here’s a quote from the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves which I mentioned earlier. I hope it makes you smile – but if you’re not sure of the point it’s making, then I suggest you buy a copy!
“A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
‘Why?’ asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife annual and tosses it over his shoulder.
‘I’m a panda,’ he says, at the door. ‘Look it up.’
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
― Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Author: Diana Nadin
