Grammar Posse: IT'S Unprofessional

Grammar Posse: riding across the hills and plains, righting grammatical wrongs and wiping the tears of crying children.

It’s hard for me to trust a professional when they don’t know the difference between “its” and “it’s.” To me, it’s a demonstration of how they are going to handle their business, whether it’s an incorrect sign at the bank or a grammatical error in a banner ad on a website. Adding or forgetting that apostrophe says something about a person. It says: “I am too busy/negligent to make sure that my work is proofread before being presented to potential customers.”

A poster for a fundraiser at a high school, I can understand. Usually those are tossed together at the last second by a student who thinks they’re invincible or an unnaturally tired teacher. But in the promo for a video game, or on a t-shirt?

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If you are a business person, it’s probably pretty easy to ask someone who works for or with you to glance over your products and advertisements before they go to the printer. Use a spell check. You’d be hard pressed to find a piece of software without it these days.

Basically, it’s unprofessional to skip the proofreading. You should always make sure everything looks perfect, for the good of your company’s image. Once that mistake or typo goes up, everyone who can read will think you’re stupid.

I guess I have to sing this one more time. “Ohhh, if you want to be possessive, it’s just “I-T-S,” but if it’s supposed to be a contraction, then it’s “I-T-apostrophe-S! Scalawag!”