Grammar, a Victim in the Office - Sue Shellenbarger, WSJ.com

This Embarrasses You and I*

Grammar Gaffes Invade the Office in an Age of Informal Email, Texting and Twitter

Following those headings of this article, Shellenbarger writes:

Managers are fighting an epidemic of grammar gaffes in the workplace. Many of them attribute slipping skills to the informality of email, texting and Twitter where slang and shortcuts are common. Such looseness with language can create bad impressions with clients, ruin marketing materials and cause communications errors, many managers say.

And the asterisk in the main heading? To be grammatically correct, that I should be replaced with Me.

Shellenbarger quotes a couple of respected authors of books on writing and some employers about problems in the workplace with employees who make embarrassing errors in things they write.

She writes:

There's no easy fix. Some bosses and co-workers step in to correct mistakes, while others consult business-grammar guides for help. In a survey conducted earlier this year, about 45% of 430 employers said they were increasing employee-training programs to improve employees' grammar and other skills, according to the Society for Human Resource Management and AARP.

 ____
This article is featured today (Aug. 18) in Garbl's Style: Write Choices--available at the Editorial Style tab above and by free email subscription.

For help in writing correctly, consistently and concisely, visit Garbl's Editorial Style Manual. My free writing guide can answer your questions about abbreviations, addresses, capitalization, English grammar, Internet terminology, numbers, plurals, possessives, punctuation, spelling and word usage.