WORD MAGIC: (full story)
Spell Check Isn’t Foolproof and Other Cautionary
Tales ...
Written communication, whether it’s your Web copy,
listing brochures or emails, is one of the most
important tools you have to let the world know about
your skills and services. It is imperative that the
words you send out show that you are a real estate
professional who takes pride in providing the best
possible service to your clients.
Typographical and grammatical errors are a recipe for
disaster. Many clients will never get to the heart of
your message if they encounter mistakes along the way.
Here's how you can avoid some of the most common (and
embarrassing) errors.
The solution is careful proofreading. Do it yourself and
then pass your work on to someone who has not seen it
before. It’s very difficult to catch errors in your own
work. When I proofread, I use a ruler and read every
line one at a time as I move the ruler down the page. It
helps slow me down and consequently, I am able to catch
more mistakes. Here are a couple of the most common
errors: tape them to your monitor!
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There vs. their. “There”
is a location; “their” indicates possession.
Example: “Their ball is over there.”
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Its vs. it’s. My mother,
the English teacher, drummed this one into
me. When you use it’s (with the apostrophe),
this indicates a contraction, two words
merged into one. In this case, the words are
“it is.” Now, here comes the tricky part.
When “its” is used as a possessive, it does
not follow the usual rule about using an
apostrophe to indicate possession. “Joe
threw the dog its bone” may look odd, but
it’s correct.
-
You’re vs. your. Again we
enter contraction-land. “You’re” is an
abbreviation for the words “you are.” “Your”
means belonging to you. Example: “You’re so
generous with your time.”
-
Everybody and his mother:
subject – pronoun agreement. This one is
really tough. The words “everybody” and
“everyone” are singular – therefore they
require singular pronouns. Example:
Everybody should carry his own ticket (not
everybody should carry their own ticket).
However, this leaves us with the awkward
his/her dilemma. Personally, I avoid the
his/her issue whenever possible by
converting the sentence to a plural subject.
Example: “ All of us should carry our own
tickets” or “All passengers should carry
their own tickets.” Play with it awhile and
it will start to make sense.
-
Don’t rely on spell check
for efficient proofreading. Spell check is a
great tool and a good first step in checking
your copy. One of its great drawbacks,
however, is lack of homonym detection. You
type, “I went over to there house” (which,
as we learned in rule #1, is incorrect).
Spell check finds this to be a perfectly
legitimate sentence and does not find the
error.
Keep a dictionary, a good
style book (Elements of Style is a classic) and
a thesaurus within reach every time you sit down
to right, er, write. And be sure to use them!
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