wordsintotype

I Told You So: Online Spelling Mistakes Cost Companies Millions

It's what I've been saying all along. Now there is analysis to back it up. "Customer spending on a website can be cut in half by a spelling mistake," says an online business analyst in the UK. This from a BBC News story about how such mistakes on a company's website can destroy its credibility:

Mr Duncombe says that it is possible to identify the specific impact of a spelling mistake on sales.

He says he measured the revenue per visitor to the tightsplease.co.uk website and found that the revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected.

"If you project this across the whole of internet retail, then millions of pounds worth of business is probably being lost each week due to simple spelling mistakes," says Mr Duncombe, director of the Just Say Please group.

Spelling is important to the credibility of a website, he says. When there are underlying concerns about fraud and safety, then getting the basics right is essential.

Why Stop at Spelling Errors?

I'd add incorrect punctuation, subject and verb disagreement, dangling modifiers, and grammatical errors to the list of online offenders.

Maybe when businesses see the financial benefits of well-written and -edited copy on their websites, they'll start hiring quality writers, editors, and proofreaders. And maybe then what we do will be considered more than "just copy."

A Note to BBC News

Dear BBC News, there is a punctuation error in your article. "Millions of pounds worth" should be "millions of pounds' worth."

But hey, your credibility is safe with me.

 

Oops! When Good Websites Make Bad Mistakes

It always disappoints me to see typos, grammatical errors, and just-plain-the-wrong-words-used online. It's especially disappointing when it's a site I respect, such as the New York Times. The effect it has is to erode my confidence in the reporting.

At least the New York Times (print and online) is aware of its errors. (See the excellent After Deadline blog, which points out and dissects mistakes that slipped through the cracks or made it past the copyeditors. And note how readers comment when there are errors in the blog itself.)

But There's No Time

The excuse I hear most often about why there are errors on websites that post new content frequently is that there is no time to fully vet the content. Well, guess what? Newspapers do it every day. That's because they have copyeditors who edit, fact-check, and proofread the stories before they're printed. (And yes, I'm aware that these positions are being eliminated by many publications as we speak.)

This is a message to everyone in editorial charge of websites that aim to be serious journalism: Accuracy = Trust. Accuracy includes spelling, usage, and grammar. Please take the finished product as seriously as you take the content itself. You can do that by hiring a copyeditor.

Here are just a few of the avoidable mistakes I see on websites and in blogs that I respect. I'll keep adding to the list, so check back often.

 

Mashable

Deepak Chopra Apologizes for Starting Earthquake on Twitter

—Headline of story, posted April 4, 2010

Wordsintotype: He didn't start the earthquake on Twitter. He apologized on Twitter. Should be "Deepak Chopra Apologizes on Twitter for Starting Earthquake"

 

Planet Green

After languishing in reputation hell for years, and reputed to cause heart disease on the level of hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils (which were considered to be better for your health!), renowned nutritionist-biochemist, Mary G. Enig, Ph.D championed the health benefits of including coconut oil in ones diet.

—"Is Coconut the New Soy?", posted April 7, 2010

Wordintotype: Should be one's. There are also several comma errors in the sentence.

 

TreeHugger

The planes are due to start flying on Tuesday, which is welcome news to the 150,000 Brit's who are stranded around the world.

—"Under the Volcano: Impact Of The Air Shutdown in London," posted April 20, 2010

Wordsintotype: Should be Brits (plural). Adding an apostrophe makes it a possessive, which it's not. Also note that the story headline is incorrectly capitalized.

Curt spent hours in the local library pouring over financial newspapers.

—"How a Can Collector Died a Secret Millionaire," posted March 31, 2010

Wordintotype: Should be poring, not pouring.

The virtues of the virtual office was something TreeHugger Founder Graham Hill believed in from the beginning . . . .

—"Ask Graham Hill About Managing a Virtual Office," posted April 5, 2010

Wordsintotype: Virtue was, but virtues are.

Mind the Gap: Remove Extra Character Spaces in Your Web Content

Putting.  Two.  Spaces.  Between.  Sentences.  Is.  Distracting.

Why? Because a word processor is not a typewriter.

Two spaces were used back in the days of typewriters, when each character took up an equal amount of space (called "monospacing"). "Two spaces, it was believed, made it easier to see where one sentence ended and the next began," writes Jacci Howard Bear, on About.com. "Today, with the prevalence of proportionally spaced fonts, some believe that the practice is no longer necessary and [is] even detrimental to the appearance of text."

If you want your online content to look as clean as possible, then use only one space after a period between sentences. If you find the two-spaces habit hard to break, or if you're editing someone else's work, use the Find and Replace tool in Microsoft Word to close those unsightly gaps. Simply type two character spaces in the "Find" field and one character space in the "Replace" field and click "Replace All."

That Which Be Who's You

Oops. Your interactive is showing. Yes, you. The web writer who used that instead of who.

To oversimplify, here is the rule for relative pronouns: That is for animals and things. Who is for people.

Correct:

The web writer who used that instead of who.

Incorrect:

The web writer that used that instead of who.

Yes, there are exceptions to the rule (see the Chicago Manual of Style, 5.58–5.60). And there are usage experts who argue that no distinction needs to be made (see Theodore M. Bernstein and H. W. Fowler).

I favor making the distinction. I think it makes one's writing sound more dignified, less digital.

To me, that's a good thing.

Sighted. Cited.

"Reynolds' presentation Saturday was preceded by a summary of what JoAnne Berkenkamp has learned in her discussions with all the "lunch ladies" around the state that are dipping their toes into farm-to-school efforts."

—Twin Cities Daily Planet, March 1, 2010

Birds Do It, Bees Do It, Even Me's Do It

Anyone who's known me for more than ten minutes knows how I feel about proofreading. I think everything should be proofread before it's published or printed. That goes double for restaurant menus.

Here at wordsintotype, I don't have my own personal proofreader. But I can make a good case for one. Yesterday I posted a piece about capitalizing headlines ("Is You Is or Is You Ain't?"). To my horror, I noticed  later that it contained a big fat error. I had used the word capitalize when I meant lowercase. I fixed it, but not after a lot of people saw it and thought what a schmo I was.

Most people's writing needs proofreading. It is a rare person who can write flawlessly and have the distance to effectively proofread her work too. I've been an editor and proofreader for years. I can almost smell a mistake—in other people's work. Once I write something, I cease to be able to see it objectively. My weaknesses are leaving out words, transposing words, and (see above) simply using the wrong word.

The spell-check tools in word-processing programs are great. People should use them. But proofreading is so much more than misspelled words. It takes a human being to notice when the wrong word is used or a factual error has been made. Most companies don't hire proofreaders anymore because they don't understand what proofreaders do and therefore don't value their skills.

Who knows what errors this post contains. Sadly, there are probably a few unemployed proofreaders out there who could read this and let me know.

I rest my case.

It's a Must for Web Writers

Learn the difference between "its" and "it's." Using the wrong word can quash your credibility.

"Its" is a possessive ("It wagged its tail"). "It's" is a contraction ("It's [it is] snowing outside.") If you'd rather not learn the grammar, just remember this: his, hers, its. They're all possessives; none of them has an apostrophe.