Just recently I received a letter in the mail, trying to convince me to bring my business to a local hotel, and to trust them with the responsibility of giving my wedding guests a place to stay while they are in town. They are a great hotel, owned by a fantastic brand, and their amenities are better than any in the area. I was sold on that hotel long before I received the sales letter. Why then am I currently looking for another hotel?

Grammar really matters.

Within the first few sentences of this letter I was biting my lips to try to contain my laughter. My right hand was itching for the presence of a red pen. I wanted to leave deep red marks all over the page, and promptly mail it back to the sales manager. The first paragraph was a measly three lines long, and I already had noted misuse of words, disagreement between subjects and verbs, and punctuation problems. Most of these things wouldve been picked up by any grammar checking software common today. This made me wonder how much time was actually spent writing and preparing this letter for me. If my business was important enough to deserve a special mailing, surely I was worth the time to correct simple mistakes.

Regardless of my feelings towards the butchering of the English language, I read on. The body of the letter was comprised of lists of the things they could offer my guests if I chose to book rooms with them. This was lacking in imagination, but it served its purpose. I cant fault them for being efficient and offering lists, it is my time they are saving, after all.

The last paragraph had me reading the letter aloud to any who would listen. The first sentence was, at best an utter massacre of logical communication. They seemed to have lost the middle part of the sentence. There was a strong beginning, some jumbled confusion, and a sound end. I dont quite know what is involved with taking something out of my hands it into ours. Also in this paragraph were more verb/subject agreement problems. It isnt that difficult. These are other problems that Word would have picked up on.

These things might seem like small potatoes to people who make these same mistakes every day, but they arent. Your ability to express your self using proper grammar and syntax creates an air of intelligence and dependability. If a large hotel chain, like the one in question, is giving out managerial jobs to people who cannot figure out how to match up subjects and verbs, then who are they hiring to cook the breakfasts, or better yet, to take your credit card information. If you are at the point in your career that you are sending out mailings to potential donators to your paycheck, grammar matters. Actually at that point grammar is paying your bills.

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