Your language skills can make a large impact on your visitors and potential customers. A well-written presentation that uses improper spelling, punctuation or grammar shows how you communicate with others. This is one of the aspects I look for when deciding to make a purchase online or offline.
This article will expose some of the most common mistakes that I have seen. Note that I am not an English or grammar professor. These are things that I have learned along the way through life.
GRAMMAR
There : a location
They’re : they are
Their : belonging to someone
Cats : plural – more than one cat
Cat’s : belonging to a cat
CDs : more than one compact disk
CD’s : belonging to a single disk
Its : belonging to something
It’s : it is
PUNCTUATION
Period : end of a sentence
Comma : pause in the sentence; not to be used after the word “and”, which joins thoughts
Semi-colon : Two related thoughts with the second sentence expanding on the first.
Colon : What follows is usually a list of related items
Ellipsis: a continuation of the same thought, similar to a semi-colon
Run-on Sentence : sometimes the thoughts flow so fast that the writer does not check for errors this should be three sentences but is written one when you see one of these it is tough to follow
Correct Sentence: Sometimes the thoughts flow so fast that the writer does not check for errors. This should be three sentences, but is written one. When you see one of these it is tough to follow.
CAPS : USING ALL CAPITAL LETTERS IS LIKE SHOUTING. NOBODY I KNOW OF WANTS TO BE YELLED AT. USING ALL CAPS IS ALSO HARDER TO READ THAN NORMAL, MIXED CASE TYPE.
FEEDBACK
What other examples, or corrections to the above do you know of?
Jim Hutchinson
Great post Jim! I’m gonna Tweet this; hopefully it’ll be a bit like 28 Days Later and get out there and infect people a bit, albeit in a more positive way.
The semi-colon is a favourite of mine, but all too often ignored or used poorly by most people. Which is a shame.
Another thing that really grates for me is when websites choose URLs that clearly need an apostrophe to read correctly (i.e. dont or isnt or aint), but they go ahead anyway. It always looks naff, I think.