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"Who Cares About Grammer This is a Blog Not a Novel"

grammer.png

That's a comment on an I Am Fashion blog post about hair extensions. I find it disturbing.

"Grammer" matters, says Lucy Ewing in the Denver Post "Why bother? Why does it matter? Rules in language matter as much as rules do in math. Five times eight is 40, not 39."

I care about the language, even though a lot of people don't anymore.

People who don't care about grammar sound like jerks. Does yourself want to sound like a jerk? Myself doubts it.

GrammarGirl has a top 100 podcast. Myself loves her.

I'm also crazy about Judy Vorfeld's Webgrammar.

Related: Does Grammar Matter?
- Lifehack: Eliminate Common Writing Mistakes
- Hello Microsoft! Why is Word Spellcheck Illiterate?


Categories: Commentary
BL Ochman | Jul 20 08 7:21 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I just feel sorry for the donkey...

Posted by: Steven Noble at July 20, 2008 8:16 PM

Me too! heh

Posted by: BL Ochman at July 20, 2008 9:34 PM

In principle, I agree. Grammar and appearing intelligent is nearly always important.

However, one thing I would note is like culture and business, language is changing. Language continues to evolve and grow into something new. Unlike Maths, language is an evolving concept.

This means that some rules that once governed language don't apply, whilst others apply more than they used to. Just pick up any Shakespeare book and you can see how the English language has evolved since then.

So, rules on grammar should be flexible and dependent on the audience. More so, these rules might very well need to be broken from time to time. I suspect that blogs, texting and more will really influence language in a manner we can't yet fathom, and this will create new rules.

Posted by: Richard Millington at July 21, 2008 3:49 AM

Good topic, BL.

Usually I am working with CEOs whose first language is not English. And I always encourage them to hire a proofreader for proofreading their posts.

But proofreaders are needed not only in English language. Good proofreaders are needed in almost every other language.

For those purposes in my blog www.positioningstrategy.com I wrote the post "Freelance Blog Coaches and Proofreaders Are Needed!" and in the comments section started to create a database of such proofreaders. Please feel free to use it and point it to whomever you believe might benefit from it.

Thank you for raising this problem.

Posted by: Linas Simonis, PositioningStrategy at August 12, 2008 8:02 AM

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About BL Ochman
BL Ochman
Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also is the co-founder of Pawfun.com, the custom photo t-shirt site for pet lovers


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