Spelling Counts

Somewhere along the line in this blog, I believe I've had a bit of a rant about the correct use of "there, their, they're" and "your, you're".  I will admit that poor grammar and spelling annoy me, and that was a bit of an issue when I moved to the UK.  I mistakenly believed that the rules of grammar and spelling would be universal among us English speaking countries.  Oh sure, I knew the British liked to throw in the odd "u" every now and then (colour, flavour, neighbour, etc) and I quickly adapted to that.  In fact, I now have a hard time spelling these words in American English, as they just don't "look right" without the "u".  I wasn't prepared to start adding additional "l's" and "s's" in such words as travelled, dialler, or focussed, but that too has become second nature. 

And then came the grammar.

I remember proof-reading a business document shortly after I started work in the UK.  I wondered what I was getting myself into when no one on my staff could construct a proper sentence.  The red ink was everywhere.  "The bank are", "the team are".  Huh?  I kept correcting the verb to the singular form ("the bank is", "the team is").  I was also getting frustrated with all of the "as at" phrases ("as at 30 April", "as at 1st July") and the need for me to go in and correct them all to "as of".  After making corrections on a good 3-5 pages of a lengthy document, it finally dawned on me that perhaps, just perhaps, the rules of grammar are different on this side of the ocean.  I ended up tossing my marked-up copy in the bin, printing off a new one, and asking a trusted colleague about the English rules of grammar.  It took a bit of time, but I adjusted.  In fact, it's now second-nature.  So for you Americans who are annoyed with grammar and spelling mistakes, and have found them to exist in this blog - perhaps it's just proper British English.  At least that's what I'm going to attribute it to (and yes, despite what we were taught years ago, it is actually an acceptable practice to end a sentence in a preposition).

Back to my pet peeve.  Let's add another to the list.  Spelling mistake?  Lack of knowledge?  Lack of care?  Who knows.  What I do know is that if I were the business owner, I'd be appalled to have this hanging in my window!

Loose - "not firmly fixed in place"
Lose - "to have less of something than you had before"
* Source - Cambridge Dictionaries Online