Aaarrgghh ... pet peeve ... spelling & diction on business sites

pmhoran

New member
I may have posted something on this before ... but it warrants mentioning again.

I REALLY wish companies would spend a wee bit more time making sure their sites ... especially business sites ... had all their words spelled properly on their pages ... and that they are actually using the proper words.

I am not an "English Major" ... in fact I did rather poorly in English in school ... but even on my personal websites I endeavour (endeavor for the Americans) to at least make sure I spell things right.

Nothing will make me move on to another site faster than ... going to a site selling something only to see a number of spelling errors or the wrong use of a word. In my mind, how can I trust the product or service they are marketing (how reliable can it be???) when they cannot even take the time to make sure their wording & spelling is correct?

I can understand errors when its a web site for an overseas company where English is not the primary language but are trying to offer English translation pages. Like a Japanese site offering English pages.

But, companies from countries where English is the primary language trying to market to English speaking persons ... in my book there is no excuse except possibly sloppiness which ultimately does not do the sale of their product or service any good.

As examples ... it is not "there products sell to well" ... it is "their products sell too well". It is not "he through the ball" ... it is "he threw the ball". Or typing "companies" instead of "company's" ... and vice versa.

I could care less about possible errors in forums like this ... it doesn't matter. Not even my own errors ;)

What my pet peeve is about is .... company web sites where the first impression a potential customer has is gained from reading what is being offered and/or sold.

I do not think I am alone in feeling this way. When I see multiple spelling errors or the use of the wrong words or terminology ... I quickly move on to a competitors site because I have immediately gotten the impression the site is owned by someone who does not care ... so how could I trust anything they are trying to sell me.

JMHO
Peter
 
pmhoran said:
I do not think I am alone in feeling this way.

You are definitely not alone, Peter. This is a particularly annoying personal peeve of mine. Many of us cringe when we see the litany of careless and sloppy spelling and grammatical errors on sites these days. Unfortunately, far too many site owners do not place enough importance on the need to spell check their content.

And your write. (I mean you're right ;) ), when visiting a business site, it immediately goes down 5 notches if it has errors in its content. Honestly, how much effort does it take to check it before publishing? :dknow:

Vito
 
I have to agree.

On *another* forum in fact, I was corrected by someone who in fact was wrong. lol

That has to be the most irritating thing ever.

This in fact, was the companies vs company's issue.

I was actually correcting the spelling on their site, where I had said something like "It is up to each company as to what their company's offering would be. Btw, check your spelling on your page before publishing, it doesn't look professional."

The guy replied something like:
"Before you correct someone's spelling or grammar, you may want to check your own. It's companies not company's" :rolleyes:

I actually had to give him a lesson in english, and explain that "companies" means more than one, and "company's" means that it belongs to one company.

Misspelling common words is one thing that's irritating, but being corrected by someone, and they in turn are quite wrong about the correction....errrr
 
I admit, I have way too many spelling and grammar errors on my sites. :( I am slowly (very slowly) correcting this though.

Now, if I were to build a business site, as in offering services or products, I would definitely be 10 times more careful and put 10 times more effort into it.

Correcting spelling is a one time cost that is well worth paying considering the effect it can have on the bottom line.
 
On personal sites ... I am a little surprised that I never seem to get irritated or anything. I guess I don't expect every personal site I go to to have perfect spelling or anything ... actually misspellings give you a wee bit of an insight into the person whose site it is.

I do expect it in a business site however ;)
 
Peter, I could not agree more. Whenever someone wants to give the image that they are professionals, they should be meticulous in everything they do, including spelling. Last time I checked, there are many online dictionaries and even sites that tell the correct use of the English language. IMO, a business can have a very different image if they put forth the effort to proofread their own work.
 
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