Spelling & websites getting things right; how much does it matter?

[sammyc]

Have now come to expect mistakes on websites etc as the rule not the exception, right from the smallest of small businesses, to pretty much the top end.

For me, it goes beyond that I'm bothered a firm can't spell or punctuate; in this context, I'm bothered you don't pay a tiny bit of attention to getting things right, given all the spellchecks & whatnot available. Firstly your website just says amateur the minute I see a slew of errors, and second I think - why would I believe you take care over what your actual business involves, if you can't do a quick proof-read?

I am reconciled to the idea that most people don't notice or care, so it probably doesn't even harm business, but is that a good enough reason to lie down & let it roll over you? Occasionally I'll correct someone & very occasionally they appreciate it; but I imagine many probably wouldn't, or would thank you to your face & mutter 'who cares, nitpicker..' to themselves.

I'm not just talking the odd typo btw, this is everything from a self-publish firm that can't spell, to blurb that's practically gibberish, to glossy magazine sites getting names wrong, &c. Plus I'd need a whole other thread just for sites that can't sort their navigation so that key stuff is findable, or is even ..there.

Losing battle..?

[Ttaskmaster]

Yep, losing battle.
Everyone makes mistakes... occasionally, very rarely, even I make the odd one. Usually I mistype 'the' as 'teh', due to the left-right-left-right rhythm in how I developed my typing style. However, I can usually feel when I hit the wrong key and go back to correct it.

My manager does the thing... where she types a few words... and then continues the sentence... or makes a new one... I'm not sure which... as she doesn't use punctuation... but blames it on spending too much time around social media... which makes me wonder why she has the high-paid job and I'm doing the donkey work (I'm a Technician, who does pretty much what an Engineer does but isn't entitled to the same pay because I don't have a degree).

In short - No-one cares, no-one gives a damn and it's infuriating as hell!!
I do my best to properly construct something relatively readable, but that's just my own fussiness.

[jag272]

The occassional typo I can handle, more frequent errors rapidly lose my trust however, especially if it is someone I intend to purchase something from.

Typos are a very slippery road, the first will stand out to people but some will recover, if it continues then before you know it nobody will trust you at all because whether it be a website, article, shop sign etc, it shows a complete lack of care.

[DanceswithUnix]

A professional site should look professional, I don't want to read illiterate content somewhere where I expect a professional service.

OTOH, my kids have Judo lessons at a place with a pretty iffy website, because they are non profit and all they care about is Judo not HTML. Would they get more takers with a better site? Probably not.

[Knoxville]

It annoys me because it shows a distinct lack of effort, particularly if the error is one that won't be flagged by a spell checker but would be an easy spot if the piece was proof read. For example, when I worked at Premier Inn we had an issue with the hair dryers on site. All of them were melting during use, catching fire and generally behaving exactly the way I'd expect a piece of electrical equipment that was built by the lowest bidder and never PAT tested to behave. As a result all eighty seven of them had to be quickly removed from guest rooms and our shining light of an operations manager decided a note should be left in every room explaining how sorry the company was etc. etc.

So she squirrels herself away on the front desk for a morning to write this masterpiece, prints off ninety copies on headed paper and then turns the back office into a laminating sweatshop manned by two reception team members to get all of these notes laminated ready to be placed in guest rooms by my staff the next morning. Until muggins picked one up the next morning and read it to his team during the morning meeting nobody had noticed that the note finished with the words "We apologise for any convenience caused".

Personally, I have no words for that level of daft. We all make mistakes, however things like that really annoy me and the same goes for errors on websites and in print publications. In print in particular when you have editing staff I should never see placeholder text instead of a caption for an image or "teh" instead of "the" in a sentence. It shows such a distinct lack of care and consideration for the finished product that it diminishes my respect for not just the offending article, but the publication or company as a whole. My writing is far from perfect and when I do pieces for magazines like Sonic Shocks my audience is also relatively small but I will still always read my work through several times before I send it in to be edited. As a result I find it very frustrating to see errors like that slip through the net.

I think it is very much a losing battle though unfortunately, especially online. Don't even get me started on the overall quality of writing in news and product reviews online... I'd much rather read an informative, well written article on something than a regurgitated press release or copy and paste job that makes it to the net a bit quicker but at the moment we seem to live in a world of first is best regardless of quality and second place is nowhere

[Saracen]

If you're going to prevent even the occasional typo or spelling mistake, I assure you it takes MUCH more effort than a spellchecker, and/or quick proofread. The little beggars can be downright devious, and seem to have natural camouflage.

I've spent much of the last 20+ years submitting, as a freelance, written words for publication. Rule number 1 of freelancing for magazines or newspapers .... and I'm giving away a trade secret here .... the easier you make life for the commissioning editor, the more work you get. So you submit work that meets the commission, is properly reseached, well-written, 'comfortable' to read, of at least the commisioned number of words but not more than maybe 5% over, is without fail ON TIME, and crucially, with as few spelling miss steaks as possible, and preferably, nun at all.

That last bit, by the way, demonstrates in practical form why you DO NOT rely on spellcheckers too much.

My spelling is very good, and my grammar, despite regular evidence to the contrary on here, is also pretty good. My typing, on the other hand, is not so hot, especially on this tablet's touch keyboard. I did English A-Level, and even a Certificate of Proficiency in the Use of English which, at least in those days, was pretty much mandatory for Oxbridge. Yet, I can write something, spellcheck it, proofread it, proofread it again, and maybe a third time, then print it and proofread that, and STILL miss things that the wife spots in 3 seconds, tops.

Why?

IMHO, it's because having written something, you remember what you wrote. Most people, other than those with poor reading skills, don't read word-by-word, by rather, they scan. If your spelling is good, mistakes leap out at you UNLESS you wrote it in the first place, in which case you're half reading/scanning, and half remembering. It's as if you brain recognises the pattern, and 'sees' what you meant to write, not what your fingers actually typed.

And yet, as a freelancer, I REALLY don't want editors having to spend loads of time proof-reading and correcting typo's. Which is why I know it can be very hard to proofread, especially your own work.

Getting a body of text 100% typo and miss steak free is not a trivial undertaking.

Add to that commercial pressures at commercial publishers, and especially the number of websites produced by one man/woman and a dog, and I'm not surprised standards are .... slipping. Not surprised at all.

[Saracen]

Oh, and I checked my last post pretty carefully, before posting. Then had to edit out a typo. Then, had to go into editing again for another one. And I wouldn't be even a tiny bit surprised if there's still a lurker or two.

[Ttaskmaster]

Yet, I can write something, spellcheck it, proofread it, proofread it again, and maybe a third time, then print it and proofread that, and STILL miss things that the wife spots in 3 seconds, tops.

Because despite whatever anyone else might think, you are as human as the rest of us?

But if that's what's required to check something at a professional author level, then forum posts and websites where the webmaster (is that term still even relevant, these days?) is likely just an employee who still has a full-time role to be getting on with are even less likely to have stringent checks.

I certainly just want to say something and get on. If I have to spend more time checking than it took to write it, something is up.
However, I have 'professionally' proof-read things previously and still notice errors in eBooks. One thing I used to do was read it forward to check grammar and general flow, then read backward to check spelling. This helped avoid the trickery where the brain compensates for missing/doubled words and the like.

Stuff like this:



Correcting mistakes is often just too much effort, especially with the crappy touchscreen phones these days.


Then again:


Gust becos I cud not spel
It did not mean I was daft
When the boys in school red my riting
Some of them laffed

But now I am the dictater
They have to rite like me
Utherwise they cannot pas
Ther GCSE

Some of the girls were ok
But those who laffed a lot
Have al bean rownded up
And hav recintly bean shot

The teecher who corrected my speling
As not been shot at al
But four the last fifteen howers
As bean standing up against a wal

He has to stand ther until he can spel
Figgymisgrugifooniyn the rite way
I think he will stand ther for ever
I just inventid it today


Written by Brian Patten.

[sammyc]

.. which makes me wonder why she has the high-paid job and I'm doing the donkey work (I'm a Technician, who does pretty much what an Engineer does but isn't entitled to the same pay because I don't have a degree).

Excellent point. If I point out someone's error, I'm aware that I may be looking down on their spelling ability, but they are essentially looking down (and from arguably higher) as the people who despite their sloppiness are making the money. Spelling may be the only part of their job I could do better, so overall, I'm not exactly in a position to sneer. I know people in business personally who can hardly string 2 words together, and do cut corners, but are doing fine, and I suspect as much because they don't 'fuss' as despite it. Seeing the big picture/being creative instead of finicky tend to be a bit of an either/or, not entirely maybe, but often enough.

..Typos are a very slippery road, the first will stand out to people but some will recover, if it continues then before you know it nobody will trust you at all because whether it be a website, article, shop sign etc, it shows a complete lack of care.

Exactly, & I'd expect that to be what others would take from it, but I also think we are getting that less & less people will notice or care.

A professional site should look professional, I don't want to read illiterate content somewhere where I expect a professional service.

OTOH, my kids have Judo lessons at a place with a pretty iffy website, because they are non profit and all they care about is Judo not HTML. Would they get more takers with a better site? Probably not.

Very true, it's a sliding scale, agreed. Although even knowing that virtually every flyer that comes though the door will have a mistake somewhere, in a case like your example, it's a different matter. On the next level up, if you're a local handyman, I'd want to think you take care over detail - and you still might be very good in your work even if you don't know where an apostrophe goes. But a professional site, someone handling the written word etc, you're doomed the moment I read badly-worded gubbins.

and our shining light of an operations manager decided a note should be left in every room explaining how sorry the company was etc. etc. So she squirrels herself away on the front desk for a morning to write this masterpiece..

As soon as I hit this part my heart sank and I would absolutely be the muggins in that situation (and have been), gazing at something and thinking ..really?!

The rest of your post - brilliant, every word, and a joy to read. Thanks. The fact that not only do people get things wrong, but don't care anymore that they have, or think it matters much - that's what depresses me. Definitely the way things are heading - or should I say, 'defiantly'..

[sammyc]

is properly reseached

And I wouldn't be even a tiny bit surprised if there's still a lurker or two.

as there probably is in mine.

Re spell-checking & so forth, I was using those as a starting-point to get rid of the obvious, then onto a visual check etc, but yes, I take your point entirely that it's only a start. The kind of errors I see are mostly the sort where it's clear they don't know why what they have put is wrong, for the most part. They jump out at me not because they've slipped through, but because the person writing it thinks they are ok and haven't bothered to ask the wife to check, or any third party, or have even thought it necessary. I forgive typos & sneaky errors far more readily than the 'potatoe's and mistakes that a spellcheck would catch' kind.

[sammyc]

Gust becos I cud not spel
It did not mean I was daft
When the boys in school red my riting
Some of them laffed... etc

Very good and much what you (& I in response) were saying - these things are not a bar to success, as in the wider example of academia isn't everything, and those worst sort of teachers who tell kids they'll never amount to anything, etc. Maybe it's entirely necessary that big businessmen have the ideas & leave the spelling to 'us', the same way geniuses don't need to boil an egg.. but as long as someone is deputed to do the commas & the tidying-up, that's fair enough.

[scaryjim]

There's a reason you can make a decent living as a freelance copy editor. There's a reason there are huge crowd-sourced editing and writing mills online. There's a real skill in being able to proof read a document quickly and accurately, and a genuine talent in being able to edit the text someone's kludged together into a smooth, well-reading passage. I'm better at it than most of the people I work with, but I'm nothing compared to my better half, who is a fantastic editor.

If you're putting out any content in a professional context, there is no excuse for poor spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. If you don't have the skills/talents to edit the piece yourself, employ someone who does. Same with website design - if you're not a website designer and you're using the website for professional purposes, get someone professional to do it. I will actively avoid badly written and badly designed websites wherever possible. If it's part of making your living, you really should be willing to put in a little effort to get it right.

[Ttaskmaster]

but as long as someone is deputed to do the commas & the tidying-up, that's fair enough.

On a public-facing website or other such communication, yes. That's mostly what we have departments like the Media Dept for.

But when this Big Business manager type is trying to give me fairly simple instructions on which assets they want a safety inspection on, yet I cannot even guess what their email is trying to explain... Then I have issues!

[sammyc]

Have just been trying to re-find an excellent example I saw recently - a rug cleaning firm (I think) finally had it brought to their notice that their ad/poster was riddled with errors; the firm's owner hadn't proof-read it on account of the fact he had told them to copy a previous item & assumed they had done so letter for letter. The poster had been in situ somewhere for some length of time (years?) with nobody bothered til whoever spotted it. Doubt he had lost a job over it.

Another area is stuff like Twitter, where I've been foraying lately, so many errors in people's bios, in exactly the fields you would want to look professional in (you'd think) - contact details, summary of what you are about etc. Daresay again, few notice or bother.

[sammyc]

If you're putting out any content in a professional context, there is no excuse for poor spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc. If you don't have the skills/talents to edit the piece yourself, employ someone who does. Same with website design - if you're not a website designer and you're using the website for professional purposes, get someone professional to do it. I will actively avoid badly written and badly designed websites wherever possible. If it's part of making your living, you really should be willing to put in a little effort to get it right.

Precisely. It isn't such an effort to get someone to at least cast an eye over what you are producing, but the friends/acquaintances I mentioned, just don't - apart from the odd thing I point out - and they know they can't spell, so..
Worse still where a piece has made it all the way down a chain, say from artwork to printing, with no safety net. Or saftey, as I have just seen on a home-security items site.

But when this Big Business manager type is trying to give me fairly simple instructions on which assets they want a safety inspection on, yet I cannot even guess what their email is trying to explain... Then I have issues!

Ha, yes. Been there, got the misspelt t-shirt.

[BobF64]

as there probably is in mine.

I'm fairly sure that there is a mistake here

Have now come to expect mistakes

That said, it's one thing to write intelligible things on a forum that aren't linguistically correct and for basic mistakes to be on a corporate website or, as often happens, a news site like BBC news.