Business Writing

After a comment on my blog a while back, I felt it was worth addressing some of the major differences between UK and US English. There are, of course, other variations (Australian English, Indian English …) and they are all legitimate forms of the language.

In the last tip we looked at some easily misused and confused words. Today I thought I would continue with some more of the most common errors I see.

A few people have contacted me about words that are frequently misused, so I thought it was worth putting together at least one post about some of these.

I know I’ve talked about emails in a previous post. I shared my top tips with you some time back:

You may get sick of me talking about using plain English, but it is important. Consider how many people you talk to or write to who aren’t native English speakers.

When it comes to pronouns (words that replace nouns in sentences) people sometimes don’t know whether to use the singular form of the verb or the plural.

My, myself and I are three words that native speakers confuse regularly. More and more people seem to be saying things like:

As a writer I read a lot. Much of what I read is about writing. Today I was reminded of some important things that I learnt about good writing from a master.

Often when I write I just park myself in front of the keyboard and start typing. This is fine when I want to capture an immediate thought, or have an idea that’s already formed in my head, but it does not result in a finished product. It does not result in a document that I would send to someone or use on my website.

It’s easy to make a mistake when you’re typing. Our fingers often struggle to keep up with our brains and, in their rush, miss out words or type the wrong words. Some of the typos can be quite funny. But in business writing, being funny is not your aim.