News - Millions of sales lost due to spelling mistakes

[maverick77_uk]

The BBC reports that a survey of a online sales by entrepreneur Charles Duncombe revealed that single spelling mistakes can reduces sales significantly.

The research found that potential customers are turned off by errors in spelling and grammar on websites, as they lose faith in the credibility of the retailer.

Is it just me that finds that ironic?!

[Zadock]

If you wanted a good good spelling and grammar checker, why use Word?

Seriously though, as a professional writer, if you rely on Word, you WILL come unstuck, sooner or later. It's a tool, just like a chisel. I mean, give a master carpenter a good, sharp chisel and you have a recipe for a masterpiece. Give me a good sharp chisel and you have a recipe for a visit to A&E.

Couldn't agree more.

I write reports for a living and the only thing you can rely on to ensure that your spelling and grammar are correct and that the whole thing makes sense is yourself! Read and re-read as many times as you can, its tedious but if you don't do it there will be mistakes. My personal favourite is the mis-spelling of "public" being corrected to "pubic", I've seen quite a few "pubic consultations" over the years and it still makes me chuckle.

The other thing I find people do is use the wrong dictionary, this is the United Kingdom! for the love of god use the UK English dictionary! I was recently involved in a consultation on a document being produced by BSI (British Standards!) and the whole document contained words like "Organize" and "RecogniZe".

[scaryjim]

... My personal favourite is the mis-spelling of "public" being corrected to "pubic" ...

Aaaaaaaaargh! Don't. I recently sent a CV to a large national corporation with that mistake in it - the dangers of not proof-reading carefully enough. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get the job.

[kalniel]

The other thing I find people do is use the wrong dictionary, this is the United Kingdom! for the love of god use the UK English dictionary! I was recently involved in a consultation on a document being produced by BSI (British Standards!) and the whole document contained words like "Organize" and "RecogniZe".

Both are correct in UK English.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/spellingizeiseyse

[Zadock]

True but I don't know about other people but when I was at school we used to get marked down for using "Z"s in those words, always been told that the use of 'S' was proper english. Same at uni as well but I guess that could be down to the teachers/lecturers preference. Spelt with a Z those words just look wrong to me because I've had it drummed into me from day one

I suspect being able to use either is a result of transposition from american english?

[kalniel]

I suspect being able to use either is a result of transposition from american english?

And American English came from...?

A lot of American is older than British English - we've been more 'polluted' by other languages and trends in Europe since than they have. Color for example, before we thought that adding 'u's would make us more sophisticated and French like.

Or I could just be repeating misguided advice from an American

[Hicks12]

it does slightly put me off buying but it depends on the site, e.g if it was specialtech or scan and had a spelling mistake i wouldnt take the blind bit of notice (unless ofc the mistake makes it seem like a different product then ill verify) but for a new business or one less known to me i will be put off a bit and then research the background of the business more as generally i always find spelling mistakes = scam nowadays .

[Zadock]

And American English came from...?

A lot of American is older than British English - we've been more 'polluted' by other languages and trends in Europe since than they have. Color for example, before we thought that adding 'u's would make us more sophisticated and French like.

Or I could just be repeating misguided advice from an American

No, actually I think you are right... '-ise' is a strictly british thing favoured by cambridge university press, which is probably why I favour it because most of my course materials A-Level and Degree came from them! If anything 'the American version is older more correct, '-ise' has come from some poetic license by the looks of it. I stand corrected! Very, very interesting! Doesn't mean I'm going to stop using '-ise' in my reports though, thats my poetic license call me a snob

[Saracen]

Both are correct in UK English.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/spellingizeiseyse

Quite right.

I had this "argument" years ago after one of my articles for the Telegraph generated a reader letter, complaining about -ize.

I replied, a bit tongue-in-cheek, quoting literary sources over about a thousand years of classic literature, alternating between -ise and -ize. I also quoted the full OED view on it, which is probably about as authoritative a source as there is.

I will admit, by convention, -ise is far more common, and traditional, in the UK but, neither is actually wrong.