Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Speed Bumps
While reading an article recently in a very respectable, big city newspaper I came across the word “therefore” spelled as “there-for”. Yep, as the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up folks.Now, as many of you will be aware, I don’t tend to worry too much about spelling. I’m usually of the “it’s a simple mind that can only come up with one way to spell a word. How-ever (intentional, of course), this all but stopped me in my tracks. Not sure why. Perhaps it is just too much of a corruption? Too far from what I expected?
Whatever the reason, this all but stopped me in my tracks. Try as I might to read on, I kept reflecting on it…and was ultimately unable to finish the article (which up until that point, had held my interest.
Seen a really inventive way to spell (ok, present might be a better term here) a word? Do let us know. And also let us know your reaction.
Well, there was the person on the workshop I was running last week who wrote on the flipchart that the team needed ‘exteranal support’ to complete a proposal…!
Great example Jon.
The problem with such mistakes is that they has the potential to ’snag’ a reader’s mind and cause them to lose focus on the topic at hand.
In this case, I find myself wondering just what “extra anal” support would be…and I’d really rather NOT be thinking about such things!!!!
(And if my intenional misuse of ‘has’ rather than ‘have’ above was a ’speed bump’ for you while you were reading this…well, that just proves my point, doesn’t it? :-)
Reminds me of a resume I was reviewing for a proposal. The proposal was for a recompete of a current contract for which we were the incumbents, supporting a government agency at the government customer’s facility. One resume indicated that the individual was on the exisiting team providing “on-sight support.” While I suppose it is true, he was working while the customer was watching, I wondered what was he doing when the customer wasn’t looking?
I had an employee (former employee) actually write down on her list of “things I do well”……………”I’m very good at getting my ‘point of cross’ in a conversation.” Yea, I’m not kidding. True story.