A proposal I was reviewing recently as part of a HealthCheck - our proposal quality assessment - contained the phrase, “other solutions don’t come even close”.

Now, as the reader’s of this blog will have noticed, I don’t always follow the “rules” of grammar myself and I really wouldn’t know if this is as Jon (one himself for honoring rules of grammar and not terribly happy that I don’t!) might put it, “proper English”.

But when I read it I found it to sound odd. I would have written this as “other solutions don’t even come close.” To me, it just sounds better.

Does this really make a difference to the reader/reviewer? Well, it’s been a week since I reviewed that particular proposal and it’s still bothering me. Did I take points off for it?* Not consciously. Did it affect my overall opinion or score?  Probably.

I would be interested to know if and how readers here are affected by the sound of a sentence or phrase.
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*I originally wrote this as “Did I take off points for it? I then changed it because it sounded better. See what I mean?