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Second_language Posted 20 years ago
Science & IT
Are Americans grammar conscious?
This was a comment made in my office. "Americans are not grammar conscious." The comment was in response to a few corrections I had made to a technical document, which was full of grammar mistakes and usage errors. Even a comma before 'which' was disputed. I told my colleagues that their perception that US English is 'grammar less' is totally wrong. Some said it is 'shortcut English'. Please help me folks!
Top answer
Well. I'm American, and I sure am. 'Shortcut English' may be acceptable for memos and emails (though it endangers accurate communication), but technical documents are formal written English, and should be well-written.
- Well.
- I'm American, and I sure am.
- 'Shortcut English' may be acceptable for memos and emails (though it endangers accurate communication), but technical documents are formal written English, and should be well-written.
- Sloppy sentence structure and inappropriate grammar in business English is poor business: it is as simple as that.
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3 Answers
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Well. I'm American, and I sure am. 'Shortcut English' may be acceptable for memos and emails (though it endangers accurate communication), but technical documents are formal written English, and should be well-written. Sloppy sentence structure and inappropriate grammar in business English is poor business: it is as simple as that.
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Yesterday, 10 people devoted an hour and a half to a discussion about the finer details of grammar and style at our company.
I chose my name here because compared to others I know, I'm pretty geeky about it, not knowing how very much more people here know about grammar than I do. But I'm only geeky compared to normal people, not those who work in my profession.
Others notice whe
I chose my name here because compared to others I know, I'm pretty geeky about it, not knowing how very much more people here know about grammar than I do. But I'm only geeky compared to normal people, not those who work in my profession.
Others notice whe
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If your company believes it is acceptable to send out business correspondence with many errors in it it will only create the impression of a company that doesn't care about the quality of its work - even to Americans!
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