Is Language Important?
Sounds like a silly question, but I ask it because I see so many abuses of language everywhere on the Internet, and I'm not preaching here for some outmoded grammar lexicon that's's going to stifle freedom of expression. No, I'm talking about the art and craft of communication. If you want to be understood, are you going to use language? Of course. And there are other ways of communicating, body language, sign language, cinematic language which uses no dialog. But as we write blogs, writing is the most important part of the job. Kyle tells us over and over that content is king and only grammatically correct keywords will work. If you're shaky on grammar, how will you know if the keyword or phrase is any good? And as writers of blogs we hope to help people and persuade them, and how are we going to do that effectively if we don't know grammar, and we don't know sentence structure? And let's not forget typos. There used to be such a thing as proof-reading, and that seems to be of less importance in this age of rushing through everything in a panic, but taking the time to proofread is necessary: too many people depend on their spell-check apps, but that just isn't enough. You still have to check to see if the app got it right. The sentences, too, have to make sense, and getting rid of typos will make the page look cleaner and more efficient-looking. Do you really want to publish something with typos in it?
And yet I've seen it time and time again on various posts and websites. Not here, necessarily, but all over. I think we should teach ourselves how to communicate and if we don't have the skills, then we should get the education to become proficient. And this is the place to start, to make mistakes so we can learn from them before we really "turn professional."
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I'm all for correct English and grammar! Being an author, I have to! Great post, Mike! I agree with all of it! :)! ---an important topic that needs to be heard!
Thanks for your comment. I forgot to add that punctuation is also a big part of it, and I just recall reading a blog by someone recently about punctuation. So I'm glad other people are seeing the need, too.
Yes, I actually wrote a couple blogs on grammar and punctuation. It's so important, more so in this day and age, to have proper writing skills.
Here is a question blog I asked the group: May I elaborate on the topic of grammar? is that okay?
That is so true. Everyone should work for striving to meet these goals. Maybe WA should think about including a thesaurus on the platform as a tool so we don't continue to use the same word over and over. Just an idea!!
Tried and True
Elaine
Thesaurus is okay, as long as you know how to use the word. It's really better to use simple words, the simpler the better, I think. We don't want to jam up our sentences with too many adjectives and adverbs. They say the Saxon word's the best choice, as opposed to the more florid French words that came into English after the Normal invasion. Anyhow, that's enough history for now!
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Amen! Now, if only the news media would read this.
You're right. Thanks for your comment.