I have often been told that spelling mistakes don’t matter on the internet because it means that the email, website, or report is written by a real human being. Real human beings have flaws and therefore the occasional flaw helps to build credibility.
There is no hard and fast rule these days as spelling mistakes used to matter more than they do now. If spelling mistakes matter to you and your audience then it is a good idea to check and double check that they don’t appear. If your customers are perfect spellers they may find it difficult to trust you if you make some obvious – and key – mistakes.
A good test is to ask yourself how you would feel if a spelling mistake in your website, email or report is pointed out to you?
If you feel nothing more than mild surprise it probably didn’t matter, anyway. Some of us can spot spelling mistakes at a hundred paces and some – even if not dyslexic – would never see them.
On one occasion I found a spelling mistake in the heading of a friend’s business email and let him know so it could be amended for the future. He said 6 of them had studied the email before giving it the OK..they had been looking for mistakes but didn’t see them.
Another time I remember being asked to SING not SIGN up for technical WordPress blog information. When I remarked on this in a conversation later the site owner said it had been like that for 3 years and nobody had commented before. The audience hadn’t noticed, and probably didn’t care if they had. (Actually it could have been more interesting to sing than sign up – I did feel mildly disappointed!).
But a good professional reputation is earned through attention to detail as well as the big picture. Spelling a really important word wrong could do damage. I did find a site talking about ROUGE traders not ROGUE traders which turned a serious business proposal into comedy. I have also recently seen FUNITURE not FURNITURE and PHOTOGRAHY not PHOTOGRAPHY.
Spelling mistakes (also called typos) can often creep in especially if you have been working on something for a long time. After a while you cannot tell if it is spelt correctly or not. Computer spell checkers can add to the confusion if you are not a good speller and may be set for a different region than the one you want. The key is to
- take a break from it, and come back fresh,
- get another person to read it through.
Some spellings are correct in one region and uncommon in another. Here in the UK I think we are more tolerant of US spelling because we are used to seeing it. I have just written a website and deliberately chosen to spell “install” in the US way rather than “instal”. The double l just looks better, but I pointed it out to my client because their literate UK audience may notice.
There are many common words which are spelt differently CENTER (US) or CENTRE (UK), ANALYZE or ANALYSE, CURB or KERB, even ADVISOR or ADVISER seems to divide across the Atlantic.
There is no right answer. Once the proof-reading is done, the only question worth asking is does it matter to your audience?
I completely agree. Thanks for your thoughts.
It depends.
Informal emails, forums and blogs are “written conversation” and just as you would not hear spelling, apostrophe or comma mistakes in a conversation, you should ignore them in such writings.
However, formal emails (e.g. job application), corporate webpages, formal reports (e.g. news articles) should be thoroughly checked and proofread.
As always, everything has its time and place.
Spelling mistakes can make a huge difference and can affect industry sales. This below article points out just how much money can be lost over poor spelling!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854
I bet you get very uncomfortable when you see these typos (and maybe a hint of glee?). I know I can end up looking for problems sometimes! But do your customers notice??
Thanks Sue I agree completely. You always find an apostrophe stuck in to “its” as though it makes the word a bit more respectable.
Great article. Had a leaflet through the door recently which read:
“Gold is at it’s highest price for 10 years!”
This one drives me nuts. “It’s” can only EVER mean it is or it has.
Regards
Sue
To me spelling (and punctuation – but that’s another story) are vitally important. The difference between, for example, “effect” and “affect” is huge: wrong spellings can completely change the meaning of a sentence. I loved your “rouge” for “rogue” example!
I notice typos all the time, but often miss them on my own copy. The advice to have someone else read your copy before publication is very sound. Another tip is to read what you’ve written from the bottom up, sentence by sentence – that way you’re concentrating on each sentence on its own merits rather than the overall meaning, so you don’t get distracted and see what you “know” you’ve written.
Like you, I’ve pointed out typos in publications, and been told “It’s been like that for months/years and no-one’s noticed before” – but if it’s leapt off the page at me it probably has at other readers too (maybe they were just too polite to comment!).
To me typos make a communication look unprofessional. If you can’t take the trouble to get typos sorted out, how will you handle bigger problems?