Monday, January 16, 2006
The Grammar-Ignorant
Recently, I've had the unenviable task of going through one of our clients' new website on the prowl for typos and grammatical errors. It was written predominately by the president of this company that will remain unnamed (what if they stumble upon this?). The few remaining sections were penned by the principal owner of my place of business, Rob.
I swear - the president of that company could use a lesson or two in grammar. Among the abundance of comma splices, he would use arbitrary capitalization. For example, words like "client" and "metal" were capitalized. On top of that, this man has no clue of the difference between a colon and a semi-colon. Grr. It was so frustrating.
As for Rob, we are just going to have to start calling him Bennet Brauer. Remember that SNL skit with Chris Farley? This is Rob's writing style:
We have hired the "best of the best" in the metal industry to give our customers the "peace of mind" that they seek.
Or something like that. The weirdest use of "quotation marks" I've ever seen. I even "Googled" the rules of proper quote use to make sure it wasn't just me "going crazy." You're only supposed to put quotes around phrases if you're "using them ironically," with "reservations" or in some "unusual way," do not use quotation marks for well-known phrases, etcetera, etcetera. And I highly doubt that you don't really want to hire the best of the best or give your customers peace of mind (which, by the way, was initially spelled "piece" of mind by the brilliant company president - and more than once so you know it wasn't an accidental "slip-up").
Another common AP rule is to spell out the numbers one through nine. Once you get into double digits, you are supposed to use numerals. DUH!! I mean, has this guy even heard of the AP Stylebook??
I'm really not trying to make this guy out to be a common idiot, because he's really quite brilliant when it comes to his field (their company leads the entire country). It just makes me feel smarter than someone in this one area. Let me have my moment.
I swear - the president of that company could use a lesson or two in grammar. Among the abundance of comma splices, he would use arbitrary capitalization. For example, words like "client" and "metal" were capitalized. On top of that, this man has no clue of the difference between a colon and a semi-colon. Grr. It was so frustrating.
As for Rob, we are just going to have to start calling him Bennet Brauer. Remember that SNL skit with Chris Farley? This is Rob's writing style:
We have hired the "best of the best" in the metal industry to give our customers the "peace of mind" that they seek.
Or something like that. The weirdest use of "quotation marks" I've ever seen. I even "Googled" the rules of proper quote use to make sure it wasn't just me "going crazy." You're only supposed to put quotes around phrases if you're "using them ironically," with "reservations" or in some "unusual way," do not use quotation marks for well-known phrases, etcetera, etcetera. And I highly doubt that you don't really want to hire the best of the best or give your customers peace of mind (which, by the way, was initially spelled "piece" of mind by the brilliant company president - and more than once so you know it wasn't an accidental "slip-up").
Another common AP rule is to spell out the numbers one through nine. Once you get into double digits, you are supposed to use numerals. DUH!! I mean, has this guy even heard of the AP Stylebook??
I'm really not trying to make this guy out to be a common idiot, because he's really quite brilliant when it comes to his field (their company leads the entire country). It just makes me feel smarter than someone in this one area. Let me have my moment.
// posted by Brianne @ 3:27 PM 
Comments:
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I hear ya! That drives me CRAZY! I mean I know I do not do these things in the most proper way but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out some of it!
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