Dianna Booher - Boohers Rules of Business Grammar: 101 Fast and Easy Ways to Correct the Most Common Errors

Copyright 2009 by Dianna Booher. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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My thanks to the following people for their help:

Clients and attendees of writing and grammar workshops for their examples and lively discussions!

The team at McGraw-Hill; Donya Dickerson, my editor; and Doris Michaels, my agent.

Polly Fuhrman, for reading the manuscript and offering comments.

Kari Gates, for reading the manuscript, offering comments, and helping to prepare the manuscript.

The Booher team for picking up the slack in my absence from the office while I wrote yet another book!

DIANNA BOOHER

While visiting a museum in Beijing, I saw a sign that read NO LOUDING. After a chuckle at what was obviously intended to mean No Yelling in this dignified place of artifacts and learning, I thought to myself: even if English is a second language here, youd think that the curator would have verified the translation before posting signs everywhere.

But on later reflection, Ive come to believe that people dont ask about things they dont know they dont know. That is, professionals today in every country and in every walk of lifeprofessors, plumbers, engineers, accountants, salespeople, systems analysts, CEOs, and surveyorsmake many of the same mistakes when they write and speak.

Some very smart people have difficulty with grammar. The peculiar thing is that they think other people dont notice! Imagine.

Thats like an amateur carpenter saying to a master builder, Im making my granddaughter a desk chair for her dorm. One leg is an inch shorter than the other three. But I dont think thatll be noticeable, do you? Thats like a shipper saying to the accountant, Our invoices dont agree with the bank statements, but I dont think that should create any questions. Or how far do you think a lawyer could get in court by inserting all the wrong dates in his clients sworn testimony and appeals?

We notice errors and imprecision in our own area of expertiseyet we think accuracy and precision in language dont matter. But they do.

For starters, grammar errors create clarity problems. Consider this sentence: The 90-day clause in the contract, which is still pending approval, does not allow a price increase. If the contract is still pending approval, finethats what the sentence says. But if its the 90-day clause thats pending approval, this is a problem waiting to happen. If the 90-day clause is pending approval, the sentence should read, The contracts 90-day clause, which is still pending approval, does not allow a price increase.

A second reason to be concerned: coworkers and customers may not be amused by mistakes. In fact, they may become downright annoyed. Airline executives have discovered that dirty meal trays indicate to passengers that the mechanics dont service the engines. Similarly, poor grammar on the part of bank tellers suggests to customers that their home mortgages contain amortization errors. Perception overpowers logic in such cases.

Image counts.

To the listening ear of a client or a boss, bad grammar sounds like fingernails dragging across a chalkboard.

Yet bad grammar is like bad breatheven your best friends wont tell you. Besides, its bad manners to go around embarrassing other people by pointing out their errors. After all, I dont want you to come over to my house and point out the cobwebs in the corners. So lets just do this little self-improvement project anonymously. (You can send a maid to my house any time by arrangement, thank you very much.)