The Subtle Differences in Life

When I was at school, I favoured English Literature over Language. I had reasonable writing skills which enabled me to blag things if I didn't know the answer or pad something out around an argument but hitting the required word count. When I was at University, that did not work. Studying English Lit meant a lot of reading, no blagging, no padding. I was exposed. So I went down the Language route, and my analytical skills developed.

I chose English because I was reasonably good at writing in particular, but also because I didn't really know what I wanted to do and it was a solid route to keep my options open along with my languages. I also harboured vague desires to become a teacher and subsequently a journalist, but that didn't last too long. It did however give me solid foundations for my professional career, which I think was the right call. It also gave me a decent understanding of grammar - needless to say I'll be proofreading this blog several times.

I saw one of these humorous posts on Facebook a couple of days ago which highlighted the importance of grammar to our everyday lives. It read:

Knowing your shit and Knowing you're shit.....the difference grammar can make!

There's a pretty fundamental difference between the two, but an easy mistake to make. I am actually typing this blog on my blackberry....and I am avoiding the sms language. Unfortunately, as useful as texting, bbm, What's App, and MSN are, they do butcher the English language and we probably do make more grammatical mistakes for that reason. I never thought I would see the day when my mum would LOL at me!

As useful and as efficient as they are, it is so easy to create misunderstandings. How often have you questioned the tone of such a message which would be far clearer if somebody had told you on the phone? It happens all the time. And different people use grammar in different ways. If my girl messages me with a full stop (a ‘period’ to my North American friends) rather than an exclamation mark, I can tell the tone is perhaps a little downbeat or more serious. If a Rob Lockhart uses an exclamation mark, then either the world is about to end, or the Toronto Maple Leafs have just won a Stanley Cup. Needless to say that neither are likely.

Emails. Are you the kind of person who starts an email with Hello/Hi or Dear or do you just go straight in with the name? Personally, I find it a little impersonal at times without receiving the greeting, but you can meet that person and they can be as pleasant as anything. I had several emails with our company accountant last week and she started every email with ‘Hi Rob’ – even though we were speaking all day long via phone and email…..never once did she leave out the greeting which impressed me.

Understanding the small and subtle differences that your punctuation and grammar can have on the tone of what you and other people scribble is key to avoiding misunderstandings. Remember that next time you receive a message saying ‘U no u r shit’….that extra space between the u and the r is likely to be a heavy-thumbed mistake.