English 101: Is it Really Too Much to Ask?

Maybe it’s just because my Mother is an English teacher, but one of my pet-peeves is misspelled words. It’s not uncommon for me to see them on a daily basis – in newspapers, books, Web sites, etc. – but it is especially upsetting to me when I see these errors in advertising.

Misspellings in ads make me second-guess whoever or whatever is being advertised. Does the represented company not care enough about its public presence to spell-check its materials? Does that company’s ad/design agency not have a system in place to double-check – or even triple-check – advertisements for their clients?

I know nobody is perfect – mistakes certainly happen – but in today’s age of technology, spell-check is something that everybody has access to. Even if every Word-processing program doesn’t have it, there are hundreds of Web sites that provide the same service.

The proofing process is something that is in dire need of a resurgence. Today’s fast-paced design environment makes the proofing process even more critical. Short turnaround times and increased pressure can lead to mistakes but a good proofing process will prevent these mistakes from being published.

As a designer, I am always aware that I am ultimately responsible for, on some level, the public depiction of my client. I never want to undermine that representation with a typo, a grammatical mistake or inaccurate information in my work. Whether I create the content or the client gives it to me, it is my responsibility to make sure the final product is accurate.

I’ve seen packaging in stores, advertisements in newspapers, and signs at sporting events that are crawling with misspellings and incorrect grammar. What a difference five minutes would have made – spell-check or any proofreader worth his or her weight would have caught the errors in seconds.

I think less of any organization that allows incorrect spellings or grammar to be a part of its materials. What about you?

One of the most troubling mistakes that I have come across was on a marquis at an entrance to an elementary school here in town. It was the week before school started, and the sign was welcoming the school’s new students to campus:

“Students, Welcome to You’re New School!”

In this case, “you’re” would not have been caught by a spell-check program, had the school used one, since the phrase itself is not misspelled. But the incorrect usage is one of the most common English mistakes. “Your” vs. “you’re” is something the school’s teachers try to teach to the school’s very own students – it is NOT something parents should see as they drop off their children for school each morning.

I actually made a conscious effort to drive by this school every week for the first two months of school, to see how long it would take for either a parent or a teacher – or even a student! – to call attention to the error and have it fixed.

Would it surprise you that after two months, the sign was still wrong?

I don’t know which I find more disturbing – that the mistake was made in the first place, or that none of the parents and teachers were concerned enough to request it be corrected.

In today’s age of technology, errors such as misspellings and incorrect grammar are just not acceptable.

If we can’t even expect our schools to know the correct usage of “your” vs. “you’re” – will there even be any more of us left in 25 years who will know the difference?

Do you get as frustrated as I do with these errors, or am I being too picky?

What is the most egregious example of a misspelling or incorrect grammar that you have seen in advertisements (or outside of the advertising world)?