Spelling errors? Big yawn. Who cares – as long as you get across the big message?
I just came across a message sent to a LinkedIn group from someone anxious to publicise his new CD:
“I’m proud to announce that my inspiprational and motivational “Amplify Your Success” CD is now available.”
The CD is titled: ‘Highly Effective Back to Basics Approach for Building Your Confidence & Achieving Success’.
We mustn’t get too pedantirrational about such little errors. But the subject of track No. 7 on the CD is: Make A Great Impression. (Let’s ignore for now the subject of track No. 8, which is ‘Confident Communication‘)
Nice suit, pity about the stains
Imagine someone standing before a group of wide-eyed people keen to learn the Secrets of Success. He’s wearing a well-cut suit, smart tie, sparkling cufflinks. He looks smart – and successful – from a distance.
It’s a bit draughty at the back of the room, so you move up to a front seat. You get a closer look at Mr Successful Guru. A little white stain on one of his lapels. Hm, careless … happens to us all. Then you notice another little stain on one of his sleeves … and then another on his trousers. You start counting them – seven in all.
You haven’t heard a word he’s been saying for a minute or two, so you focus back on his words – in a slightly sceptical frame of mind.
Little thing, big effect
Like stains on one’s clothes, spelling and other types of errors in our writing are little things that can have a big effect.
One or two minor errors don’t matter much (we all do it). Consistently making errors is another matter.
Say someone is offering website services. The marketing message is: Fantastic. Best in the business. Unrivalled service. But the copy is riddled with mistakes, so a secondary message is being conveyed: Sloppy. No attention to detail. Unprofessional.
Yet everywhere you look you see errors – in LinkedIn discussions, forum comments, marketing material, website copy – committed by people who are trying to promote themselves.
A lot of the writing is so slipshod you can’t even work out what the person is trying to say. But that’s a matter for another day.
Yes, I know, this is not a very inspiprational bit of writing, but we need to remind ourselves to pay attention to our words before they go public. If we do, we’re more likely to Make A Great Impression.
(Meanwhile, if you’re doing some public speaking and want to Communicate Confidently, don’t forget to check your clothes before you go on stage.)
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“Good spelling is really important, as is always checking your work.”
The person who said this should be listened to. He is, after all, Britain’s Schools Minister, Jim Knight. He urged British pupils to edit and proofread their writing work. And so they damn well should.
Meanwhile, a good case study of the problems that arise when you don’t edit and proofread your own work involves, eh, British Schools Minister Jim Knight.
Mr Knight crafts his own blogs. In February 2009, someone pointed out that these were riddled with errors, including: similiar, pernsioners, maintainence, convicned, curently, reccess, archeaological, receieved and foce (foce?).
Words were missing in many of his mangled sentences:
He wrote about a new road in his Dorset South constituency, saying it had “receieved” planning permission, adding: “It’s great to see work already starting on the route in terms of the archeaological investigations.”
Other examples: “The new diplomas are being taught very successful …”.
When the little problem was pointed out to him, he admitted his sins. He’d an excuse – “I update my own blog and Facebook page, often from my phone when I am on the move. As a result, mistakes do occasionally creep in” – but added: “In the future, I ‘must do better’ and always check my work.”
Within hours, someone was also making retrospective corrections to old blog entries on Mr Knight’s website.
Making money from typos
While typos cost Mr Knight some credibility, Google’s earning an estimated $497 million a year from typos.
Harvard University researchers Tyler Moore and Benjamin Edelman say Google is making millions from the practice of ‘typosquatting’. A typosquatter registers domain names that closely resemble high-traffic websites, but include common misspellings.
For example, a typosquatter might register domain names such as Amazzon.com, Anazon.com and Amazons.com. People searching for the Amazon.com website might accidentally type in the wrong url, and thus end up on one of the typosquatter’s websites. These websites are usually a collection of lucrative click-thru advertisements.
Children’s websites have been targeted, with the result that Simpsons and Teletubbies variations have led people to porn sites.
Google ends up making money from typosquatting because its network of display ads run on the typo sites, and it gets a cut of the profits.
