English 101

Yes, especially when you are in business, proper English is a must. I come from Alaska where we have a huge Filipino community. I worked with Filipinos all the time and they always had very good English because they cared enough to learn the rules governing good English. Just because we are online is no excuse to get sloppy over proper language.

Right on!

When I was in school we had to diagram sentences. This helped us see the relationship between the subjects, objects, verbs and adjectives. For example: "there are lots of people who does not speak or write English properly" You have excellent command of the language and I say this only in an effort to help you improve since you obviously care. Just for future reference, "speak or write" refers to what "people" do. "People" is plural, therefore the plural "to be" verb is "do" and not "does". I don't know how much sentence diagramming you have done in your English lessons but it was an exercise that I always enjoyed and it helped me immensely in developing my command of the language. I have friends and family always commenting on how good my command of the language is. I credit my hours of diagramming sentences. I actually found it fun, to tell the truth.

Well, yeah, but it still frosts me! Maggiepie "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." ~ Voltaire

Me, too, Mags....me, too.

Well, you know that education is not the purpose of public schools, don't you? The purpose of public schools is controlling the masses and subverting the role of parents.

I do encourage people. This isn't about the average joe but the business owner and the written word. While I can understand errors in the spoken arena or in a relaxed forum like mylot, when you are opening a professional website you have an option to get help making sure it looks proper. Basics like verbs vs nouns and plural vs singular are easy to fix, too, which is exactly why it is so important for anyone operating a website to make sure it is done right. When there are freelance editors and proofreaders out there available for hire, there is no excuse for such simple errors like these.

It is really sad when typos and grammatical errors get past the editors, especially if it's something so basic that an average joe like me can spot it! I can tolerate some of the gray areas where it isn't so obvious like the use of who/whom or effect/affect (I still have trouble with effect/affect) but something as basic as a verb vs a noun should never make it past an editor or proofreader!

Proper language really makes a difference in your social standing, too. The story of Pygmalion made this point very clear and it was a true point. Pygmalion may have been a fiction but the principles it taught were very true!

I agree with you on that score. It is not the honesty that I call into question when I see poor language skills but skill. Running a website requires some education and intelligence and poor language (any language) belies that intelligence. A professional will consult someone to proof his language on his site before he will operate one if he is capable but lacks the language skills necessary.

Au contraire, my friend. English does have very specific rules. They may be different from the rules for other languages but they are there nonetheless. Present, past and future tenses as well as singular and plural verbs, verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions are all specific categories of words and terms. Anyone with good English knows this and to deny it is just ludicrous.

True. I remember working with a woman from the Philippines a few years back and she had the most impeccable English of anyone in the office, even those native born Americans. She quickly rose up the ranks from a simple receptionist to assistant to the director. Proper English does make a difference in your success in these sorts of venues.