Comments about ‘International Business: Million-dollar typos cause worldwide losses’

It's easy to assume your writing is good enough and that it will get the message across, but credibility is immediately diminished (and with negative consequences) when text is full of poor grammar, spelling, usage, or punctuation, or is inconsistent or unclear.

So many businesses would benefit from hiring a freelance editor once in awhile to edit or proofread their important texts. It's a worthwhile expense. Local KSL ads can put you in touch with a qualified editor. Look under writing services or tutoring categories.

A typo is one thing but what I think we are talk'in 'bout here is the inability of an "increasin" number of people who simply lack the ability "two" "comuikate" in a generally acceptable format- so the question is will this continue to hurt business or as more of "those peoples" start to dominate the work place will that loss of revenue subside and what was unacceptable at one time will become the new acceptable- maybe it is not a bad thing- perhaps it is just communications evolution?

I hope it's not communications evolution, XelaDave. Have you seen the messages people leave on Facebook? I can understand some shortened forms of words used for texting purposes, but when posting a message, please use proper spelling and grammar.

My pet peeve is stores that put tags on their merchandise for .99cents. If it costs ninety nine cents, either say 99cents or $.99. But if you combine the decimal point with the cent sign, you are really saying 99/100 of a cent. I have been known to correct tags with my pen, although it embarrasses my wife. I have not yet gotten thrown out of a store, however.

I'm surprised by the number of typos that DN lets through in both its headlines and stories. Some writers are worse than others. I've also seen the wrong word being picked, e.g., "affect" and "effect" mixed up. At times I've sent in a correction through these comments. Of course it never gets posted, but the errors are never corrected either. Once a story is down, they must be done with it at DN. Maybe it would be helpful to have a "report typo" button that emails the writers and the editor directly. I don't mean any offense here, but a professional looking article carries more credibility.

I agree with New Yorker, in fact I am seeing typos more often in every news article I read online. I for one use MS Word to type my comments in before submitting them so that I can use the spell check. I think it is pure laziness not to correct errors once they have been pointed out. I attend college and many of the students and teachers use the excuse that spelling is not their strong point. This excuse is ridiculous! I am in school to learn proper ways of doing things and the teachers think they can get away with bad spelling if they admit they cannot spell very well. Our school newsletter contained so many errors I was embarrassed enough to volunteer as editor. Now I can concentrate on what the articles have to say instead of how many typos they have. I think it is very important to be able to speak and spell the English language correctly. In fact, as an older student having graduated 20 years ago I am surprised at the number of students fresh out of high school that cannot properly use punctuation or capitalization. What does that say about our schools?

I have little tolerance for people who misspell and write sentences with grammatical errors. The worst is the "your" and "you're" words and the way they are used - or not used.

I'm waiting for someone to mention that it is not all right to write alright. And how about those frantic attempts at using apostrophes anywhere there is an "s" at the end of a word? Maybe I could get a freelancing job with an internet group, checking spelling, grammar, and punctuation like a third-grade teacher. That's just about where this should be taught.

Too bad the DNews didn't read this article before it laid off its entire copy desk and half its staff. That's why you're seeing more typos these days, New Yorker. Disruptive innovation doesn't mean much if it's misspelled.

Interesting what Charles Duncombe said about websites losing millions in online sales because of poor spelling and grammar. I'm sure that a website with good style, grammar and free of typos will contribute to the overall image of the site. As translators, we should defend the good use of language. Websites usually offer a product or service, the best written the better. A visitor opening the site in Spanish or German, for example, and finding the text is poorly written will probably make him associate that poor language quality directly with a poor quality of the product or service.And once assumptions are made, it's too late. Visitor lost, prospective client lost.