Booher's Rules of Business Grammar - Dianna Booher 2009

Introduction: NO lOUDING

While visiting a museum in Beijing, I saw a sign that read “NO LOUDING.” After a chuckle at what was obviously intended to mean “No Yelling” in this dignified place of artifacts and learning, I thought to myself: even if English is a second language here, you’d think that the curator would have verified the translation before posting signs everywhere.

But on later reflection, I’ve come to believe that people don’t ask about things they don’t know they don’t know. That is, professionals today in every country and in every walk of life—professors, plumbers, engineers, accountants, salespeople, systems analysts, CEOs, and surveyors—make many of the same mistakes when they write and speak.

Some very smart people have difficulty with grammar. The peculiar thing is that they think other people don’t notice! Imagine.

That’s like an amateur carpenter saying to a master builder, “I’m making my granddaughter a desk chair for her dorm. One leg is an inch shorter than the other three. But I don’t think that’ll be noticeable, do you?” That’s like a shipper saying to the accountant, “Our invoices don’t agree with the bank statements, but I don’t think that should create any questions.” Or how far do you think a lawyer could get in court by inserting all the wrong dates in his client’s sworn testimony and appeals?

We notice errors and imprecision in our own area of expertise—yet we think accuracy and precision in language don’t matter. But they do.

For starters, grammar errors create clarity problems. Consider this sentence: “The 90-day clause in the contract, which is still pending approval, does not allow a price increase.” If the contract is still pending approval, fine—that’s what the sentence says. But if it’s the 90-day clause that’s pending approval, this is a problem waiting to happen. If the 90-day clause is pending approval, the sentence should read, “The contract’s 90-day clause, which is still pending approval, does not allow a price increase.”

A second reason to be concerned: coworkers and customers may not be amused by mistakes. In fact, they may become downright annoyed. Airline executives have discovered that dirty meal trays indicate to passengers that the mechanics don’t service the engines. Similarly, poor grammar on the part of bank tellers suggests to customers that their home mortgages contain amortization errors. Perception overpowers logic in such cases.

Image counts.

To the listening ear of a client or a boss, bad grammar sounds like fingernails dragging across a chalkboard.

Yet bad grammar is like bad breath—even your best friends won’t tell you. Besides, it’s bad manners to go around embarrassing other people by pointing out their errors. After all, I don’t want you to come over to my house and point out the cobwebs in the corners. So let’s just do this little self-improvement project anonymously. (You can send a maid to my house any time by arrangement, thank you very much.)

But back to the topic of bad breath and bad grammar: If even your best buddies won’t bring up the subject, that means you’re responsible for finding out what you don’t know and what can hurt you badly. You can’t depend on your ear alone. What is often thought to be “bad grammar” may be fine. No rules broken. And what may sound like proper grammar to you simply because you’ve heard the usage often may actually be bad grammar.

In a nutshell, bad grammar can limit your social standing and stall your career. Let me explain in the words of a client, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company and a client of our communication training firm, talking about one of his vice presidents about to be dismissed.

“Roger has to go. He’s just not the type we need around here. At the next rung of the ladder, these vice presidents will need to spend 90 percent of their time networking to bring in the big clients. They attend social functions, serve on community boards, entertain our biggest clients and their spouses for a week on a yacht in the Caribbean. Roger just doesn’t have what it takes at this level. His hair looks disheveled half the time, and his grammar grates on me. In fact, his wife is an embarrassment socially when she accompanies him to client functions because her grammar is even worse than his. They’re both college educated, … but he’s just not polished.”

Roger lost his job—not because of his technical skills, but because he refused to understand how much his language affected others’ perceptions of his capabilities and of him personally.

Can you imagine reporting to the manager who sent out the following e-mail?

Hi Team;

Just a quick up date. Wanted to let you know that the supplier, which we had chosen for the Universal project has declined to accept our contract terms. And the fact that we will be conducting another round of meetings to agree on a alternative vendor by the end of June. On another note you’re list of equipment, should be forwarded to me by May 5 however we may postpone budget discussions at the next staff meeting I’ll let you know by Tuesday.

Regards,

Spike

It’s embarrassing—like being unaware of the glob of mustard dribbled down the lapel of your suit as you stand up to deliver a presentation. Proper grammar is power. Pure and simple. Here’s the rewrite:

Hi, Team,

Just a quick update: I wanted to let you know that the supplier we had chosen for the Universal project has declined to accept our contract terms. That means we will be conducting another round of meetings to agree on another vendor by the end of June.

On another note: Your list of equipment should be forwarded to me by May 5. However, we may postpone budget discussions at the next staff meeting; I’ll let you know by Tuesday.

Regards,

Horatio

The importance of language to career and social standing is, with few exceptions, a universal issue. As I start to write this book, I’m on a speaking tour in Kuwait. In my audience are Kuwaitis, Iraqis, Egyptians, Swedes, Brits, Filipinos, Sri Lankanese, Australians, Singaporeans, Iranians, Lebanese, Turks, Saudis, and French. In our communication sessions, people from all cultures insist that proper language separates the wealthy from the poor, the educated from the uneducated, the movers and shakers from the down-and-outers.

This book will help you prevent negative perceptions and reactions. You’ll

Improve the clarity of what you say or write.

Learn tips or techniques to remember proper usage.

Become aware of your own grammatical mistakes that annoy others and limit your social life.

Correct mistakes when you write or speak so that you can get a better job—or hold on to the one you have.

Remove obstacles to career advancement and make yourself more promotable.

You can correct deficiencies in a matter of a few hours or days of diligent study.

Confession: I’m lousy at interior design. And though I’d love to learn the skill, I fear that reading one good book on the subject wouldn’t tell me all I need to know about it.

Grammar, on the other hand, can be learned from a book. I’ve designed this book so that you can quickly skim the chapter titles to find phrases that sound familiar to you—and shouldn’t! That is, when you see a grammar error you always make, stop. Reflect on why it’s wrong, and then review the examples in that section.

The Memory Tip at the end of each section provides a tip, rhyme, example, or rule of thumb to help you correct the mistake immediately. Some techniques are deliberately outlandish. That’s because memory experts tell us that the more elaborate a visualization, for example, of someone’s name with the face, the easier it will be to remember the name. That’s the idea here—the more unusual the visualization or technique, the more likely it is that you’ll remember it. And finally, some memory tips are simple, straightforward, cut-to-the-bone rules.

Booher’s Rules of Business Grammar is not designed as a comprehensive “all you need to know” grammar text. (My earlier book Good Grief, Good Grammar provides that foundational information, and E-Writing: 21st Century Tools for Effective Communication outlines strategic steps in writing clear documents.) Rather, this quick book focuses on common errors so that you can read it today and speak or write correctly tomorrow.

Your job, your paycheck, your date, your mate—they may all depend on how well and how fast you rid yourself of the grammar gremlins holding you back. In fact, before you get started on Chapter 1 here, you may want to go to www.BoohersRules.com to assess your mastery of the subject. Then when you finish reading the book and return to the site to retake the assessment, you’ll have a real sense of accomplishment. (In fact, drop us a note at mailroom@booher.com to let us know how much you improved your score after reading the book.)

For those of you who are already grammar gurus, you may polish a few of “the finer points” you’ve forgotten through the years. With these nuances of meanings within your command, you’ll have a full range of expression at the tip of your tongue or touch of the keyboard. Let’s get started.