For all the perfectionists out there, and those that hate us

by Stacey Getz posted in: Commentary• on October 26, 2009

People sometimes (okay, often) accuse me of being overly critical when proofreading e-mails, letters and even internal documents of no consequence. Seriously, I need a support group.

But with the emergence of social media and the integration of a new generation into the workforce, I wonder whether the majority of professionals still agree on the importance of grammatical perfection in everyday written communication, or whether everyone’s lightened up a bit (besides me of course, despite my best attempts).

I think it’s an appropriate question for today’s creative professionals because as new media continues to permeate our society and enables us to cross geographical lines with more and more ease, we often meet each other via words on a screen before ever (and if ever) meeting in person.

Obviously, you want to put your best foot forward. But how big a deal is it if you (gasp!) leave out word in a sentence, or mispell someone’s name? (Yes, I meant to do that.)

Here’s my overarching hypothesis regarding how grammatical mistakes are interpreted:

No mistakes, you’re stiff
One mistake, you’re human
Two mistakes, you’re questioned
Three mistakes, you’re thoughtless
Four mistakes, you’re just stupid
Five or more, you’re completely disregarded

Agree? Does it vary according to industry? Title? Generation? Type of communication?

And what about typing in all lowercase, with complete disregard for capitalization? Or overuse of the ellipsis (…)?

Stacey Getz , APR is our director of strategic communications. Read her bio here.