WSJ Article: "This Embarrasses You and I"
A front page article in The Wall Street Journal discusses "rampant illiteracy" within the workplace:
"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."
Students of business communication will recognize many of the errors highlighted in the article, for example, improper subject-verb agreement (e.g., "There's new people you should meet") and incorrect pronoun use (e.g., "...for John and I").
The argument is that there is a shocking lapse in competence in business writing. No doubt, but there has always been shocking writing in the workplace: jargon, buzzwords, slack writing, pompous writing, disingenuous writing, and slipshod writing.
But that kind of bad writing is not what the Journal article is about. It is about an "epidemic of grammar gaffes." You might think that in the middle of an epidemic there would be some examples to present, but the article has none. It merely quotes people who say there is an epidemic, which we must presumably take on faith, because The Wall Street Journal quotes people saying so.
The Journal references pitched battles over the Oxford comma.* And the article quotes Bryan Garner on examples of 'uneducated English,' such as saying " 'I could care less,' instead of 'I couldn't care less,' or, 'He expected Helen and I to help him,' instead of 'Helen and me.' "
The examples are of interest because they display two very different phenomena. Using I instead of me as an object of a verb or preposition is grammatically correct, but often misused in informal conversation. Using I could care less** represents a choice to be informal.
And there, with a preference for informality, we have located the burr under The Wall Street Journal's saddle. It's those damn Young People. "Tamara Erickson, an author and consultant on generational issues, says the problem isn't a lack of skill among 20- and 30-somethings. Accustomed to texting and social networking, 'they've developed a new norm,' Ms. Erickson says."
Young people have always been able to write badly without the assistance of texting. New forms of slang crop up all the time, but slang is a continuing phenomenon. Fresh examples of uneducated writing crop up all the time too, but bad writing in all its forms is a cultural constant. The Internet has not made writing worse; it merely makes it easy to see just how much bad stuff is out there.
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| Take the WSJ Grammar Quiz. How did you do? |
The Wall Street Journal offers a clever interactive quiz that focuses on common errors in grammar and punctuation. Take the quiz. How did you do?
Do you agree with the article's assessment that lack of proper grammar at work is a serious issue? Why or why not?
*This is merely a style convention. Use the final comma in a series or not, as it suits you, or as it suits your employer. Even the Associated Press Stylebook says to use the final comma when it's necessary to avoid ambiguity.
**Though not logical, "I could care less" is always perfectly understood, as veteran drudge John E. McIntyre writes in the Baltimore Sun.
