Spel It Rite
Most people don’t think twice about spelling mistakes most of the time. The attitude prevalent amongst most workers is %u2018well you know what I meant’. Yet this cavalier approach to language is costing the internet business millions in lost revenue according to online entrepreneur Charles Duncombe. Mr Duncombe recently gave an interview to the BBC whereby he pointed out the fact that poor spelling on websites and blogs puts consumers off.
The rise of email and the internet is partly to blame for this, but the bigger cause of poor spelling comes from younger generations not reading enough. More and more UK workers enter the market without knowing how to spell often very simple words. The reliance on spell checker has made us all lazy but there is an entire generation out there who would not know how to construct a proper sentence without the spell check facility turned on. Mr Duncombe backs up his claims by reminding us that 99% of the time whenever a company is trying to sell something to a consumer online it is through the written word. Images will accompany adverts of course, but it is always the word that will communicate the core information the consumer needs to make a decision over whether or not to buy a service or product.
Text speak is another big culprit for causing the degradation of spelling ability across the globe. Terms like %u2018lol’ (laugh out loud) have become common place amongst the text generation and it is rare to receive a message that doesn’t have at least several spelling mistakes and coded acronyms included. Terms like payg mobile broadband are as common place as full worded sentences are. Email communication and texts are being written so fast that spelling mistakes have become socially acceptable. A poorly worded email from the boss is taken as nothing more then a simple eccentricity rather then a terrible grasp of grammar or lack of concern over sentence structure. By allowing these mistakes to become common place in society, we have set an extremely bad example to the next generations learning to read and write. It becomes even more embarrassing when you see examples of spelling bee champions who are barely older then 11 showing us all how it should be done.
How do we fix our spelling problem then? The answer is simple; we all need to read more books. Our children need to be encouraged to read as much as possible when growing up and parents need to take the time to read books with their kids together. Only by doing this will the spelling crisis begin to recede. As for spelling in the workplace, responsible managers should take the time to construct their emails properly before sending. Text speak should be dissuaded and proper sentence structure and grammar encouraged.
Spell it right indeed!
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