1. All ready and already:

Use all ready to show that everyone is ready:

Is Hortense ready?  Is the dog ready?  Are the twins ready?  Are you  all ready?

Use already to show that something happened before the expected time.

The tulips have already bloomed- two months earlier than last year!

And:  Our tickets have already been stamped.  We are all ready to  begin.

2. All together and altogether:

Use all together when you mean “assembled” or “in a group”.

The girls are all together in the cafeteria.

Use altogether when you mean “entirely”.

He was altogether infuriated at the delay.

And: I am altogether delighted that our family members are all together  today.

3. Alot and a lot:

This is easy.   Alot is not a word.  A lot means, well…a lot:  You used

to have no candy. Then you had a little. Now you have a lot.  Give me  some!

4. All right and alright:

This is also easy.  Alright is not a word.  All right is used in  informal speech to mean that everything is as agreed- okay.

The post Getting an A appeared first on Language at Work.

People can’t pop in and out of offices or catch up in the halls or chat over coffee, but communication needs to continue, so email now takes center stage, and folks are realizing what we picky communication people have been saying for years:  Email is important!

By which I mean, the quality of email writing is now getting attention.  People have noticed that email is NOT just ‘talking written down’.  Email is writing.  Those who receive the email message aren’t listening to it – they’re reading it, and they don’t have the cues to meaning that they get in an oral communication interaction. They don’t see the facial expressions or body language that modify words, and they don’t hear the tone of voice that contributes to meaning.  They have only words, and often too many of them.  Readers of emails now recognize the frustration of trying to decipher meaning in a tangle of run-on sentences, repetition, casual grammar, creative spelling.  The terms ‘clarity and brevity’ are being more closely considered.

Is it time for your folks to be reminded that the quality of their writing says a lot about them and about your organization?  After all, in these days of working alone, email is important!

Let us help.  Our virtual training sessions are clear and brief and get results.  Contact us for more information today.

The post Lessons From Working From Home appeared first on Language at Work.

What is this threat to business success?

Bad writing.

An informal study of people who have noticed writing errors in documents produced by companies with which they do business has yielded some of the following reactions:

– People in that company are stupid.

– They don’t pay attention to details.

– They aren’t careful in what they do.

– Whoever is managing that company isn’t doing a very good job.

And the worst:

• I think I’ll deal with someone else.

Writing is something we all do at one time or another in our jobs.  Most of us learned writing basics in early elementary school, and many people added some sophistication and depth to their skills in high school.  But some people didn’t have the gift of writing instruction, and others have forgotten much of what they learned, and still others don’t believe that it matters much how they write.

So many ways to demonstrate a lack of command of the language: grammatical goofs, weird sentence structure, non-sentences disguised as sentences, meaningless modifiers, made-up spelling.  It seems endless.  And perhaps it seems heartless to judge a perfectly good operation by the errors of a few, but there you are.

Naturally, we at Language at Work would like to help.  Shall we talk about writing coaching for the shy and busy, or classes for everyone else?   Give us a call at:  202-298-7700

Improve your writing with these training classes:

Better Business Writing

Plain Language Writing

Editing and Proofreading

Persuasive Writing

Grammar Gremlins

The post Writing: Is it Sabotaging your Business? appeared first on Language at Work.