The Importance of Spelling Names Right

A lot of advice for job hunters, writers, journalists and, well, anyone sending a professional message to another professional, is to make sure that you get the name right of whoever you are sending whatever it is to.

I live by this credo, and I avoid using names if I'm not sure how to spell it, and I even avoid asking how to pronounce someone's name. Because I remember in Kindergarden, getting an award for something or other (being a nice person, I think?) and they spelled my last name wrong.

On my award it said 'Samantha Gordon'. I could not stop crying.

I don't remember anything else about the award. I don't remember if they fixed it or who had mispelled it, but I remember thinking that the award wasn't for me. Despite that they meant to put my name on it, and it was just a typo. Despite that being quite some time ago, I still get annoyed at my name being misspelled. For example, my first name? Samie.

A very unusual spelling of my name, and I tend to be pretty lenient with people about how they spell it if they've only heard it or don't know me very well, but I get a little irked when I send someone an email, ending it with the proper spelling of my name, and they respond with it misspelled. I find it a little lazy, to be honest.

It always makes me wonder how much they read of my email if they misspelled my name. Especially if I introduced myself at the beginning as well as ending it with my name. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the biggest reason that I believe that it is a horrible idea to misspell someone's name.

It's insulting. Going back to being a child and not feeling I deserved the award, that really is the most basic way of describing it.

We define ourselves, in part, by our names, and if someone cannot take the time to spell our name right, they obviously do not think we're all that important in general.

Whether it's the person you're sending the resume to or the person you're sending your pitch to, if you don't spell their name right, they don't think that you are considering them important, so why should they take their time to even attempt to elevate your importance?

While not everyone will get upset about it, while I no longer will begrudge someone too much when they spell my name wrong, it still bugs me. One of my best friends does it, and while I tease him, I otherwise don't mention it to people.

But if I had to hire someone, and two people had similar credentials, spelling my name wrong may end up making the difference between hiring one person over the other.

Uses of an English Degree

So, you're getting an English Degree. When you tell people they give you a sympathetic look, or they ask if you're going to be a teacher. If your intentions are not teaching and you tell them such, they give you a confused look. Then comes the uncomfortable moment when you have to explain to them what you're going to do with that English degree, and hope they're not of the crowd of people that think you'll be stuck working at a coffeehouse or in fast food with such a 'useless' degree.

Have no fear! I'm here to let you know what careers are available for those of us with an English Degree so you don't have to feel like you have to are stuck with a career in fast food or waiting to become the next great novelist.

• Author - Most writers want to become authors in some sense. Whether they want to publish the great American novel or not, being an author is about having your name on a book. It's a hard part of the writing industry to break into, as it requires skill as well as patience.  
• Editor - One of the prized positions for many English Majors, an editor, for a magazine or a newspaper, will not only edit other people's work, but often times they will also be in charge of writing a few articles each issue, as well as dealing with freelance writers.
• Technical Writer - Technical writers are the people that write service manuals, and other instructional or informational pieces. They are needed in any industry, from electronics to automotive, to health care. If you like writing, and want to get involved in a specific industry that you don't believe caters to writers, technical writing may be for you.
  
• Journalist - You too can be Lois Lane! Well, perhaps not literally, but journalist have been around for quite some time. The most current incarnation, and the one people think of, came around with the onset of the printing press. A time honored tradition that requires good writing, reporting techniques, and a love of the truth.
• English Teacher- The most commonly assumed job for those seeking an English degree, if you like teaching others, it is always an option. You don't even need to stick to public school system. Private schools, tutoring, or professional writing teacher, you will find that many people want to learn how to write well. If you can teach someone else to write, this is an option.
• Freelance Writer - While not everyone is cut out for freelance writing, as it is a competitive field and the independence you get from working for yourself also translates into the panic of having to do everything yourself, if you can bowl through the awkward first few months where you're sure you'll never get anyone to pay you over $5 for an article, it is fun and rewarding.
• Marketing Director- Writing is, let's face it, pretty important to marketing. While you may not start as the director, you could end up there with persuasive writing skills.
• Public Relations - Writing speeches, doing press releases, and generally making the public happy isn't necessarily hard for a writer. If you are a good persuasive writer, and you love working with people, this could be the job for you.
• Administrative Assistant- The office world may not seem like the most attractive profession, but an English degree can be the easiest way to get your foot in the door to a writing based job. While some may use this as a doorway to another job, others may enjoy an Administrative Assistant job, especially in certain industries, as it is generally lower stress than a lot of other office jobs.
• Paralegal/ Legal Assistant- Those skills you learned for how to write a good essay and a research paper translate into investigative ability that will turn around and can be used well. Whether you decide to use it as a bridging degree or not, it's up to you.

However...
Despite that there are many professions available to the English Major, if you're interested in these careers and don't want to go to college or don't have the time, these are just some suggestions. Many of them you don't need a degree at all to get into. Many people move into their jobs without ever getting a degree. This can be great, and this can be dangerous, depending on the industry. I always encourage people to at least get an associate's degree in something, as it's the shortest (and cheapest) degree to get.

I may be a bit biased, however, since I grew up the girl who wanted to get a degree in everything, and still plans on getting quite a few degrees. Including a PH.D in psychology.

What are your thoughts on the uses of an English degree? Did you get one and then go in a totally different direction or did it lead to your dream job? Did you get your dream job without needing a degree? Did I miss any other interesting jobs you can get with an English degree?

How Important is Grammar?

When you were in school, in all of your English classes, grammar was heavily enforced. You would lose points if you used the wrong tense, punctuation, and other such small grammatical errors, and I was never very good at following directions. I could write grammatically very well, but I didn't like to, and I've come to realize in the years since I left school that small grammatical errors aren't as important as your high school English teacher would lead you to believe.

Now, don't take that as an excuse to throw those rules to the wind and write sentences in a jumbled, convoluted manner. That's not what I mean. What I mean is that when it comes to grammar, how particular you are depends on two things: your audience and the type of writing you're doing. Fiction writing, whether in first or third person, has a tendency to ignore grammar at times in favor of a certain style, and the tendency works quite well for some authors. An academic paper, however, would not allow someone the same leniency in grammatical errors as, say, a blog post. Each type of writing you might do has different leniency due to how formal or informal it is meant to be.

This is largely because for more casual writing, such as blogs, the writer wants to connect to the reader on a more intimate basis, and people often relate better to others who have their own little quirks than those who have perfect writing. For example, my odd grammatical quirk is putting a 'u' in certain words, such as 'favourite' and 'colour'. In American English, this is incorrect, but without fail I do this in almost everything I write. Part of the reason for this is because my Grandmother is very British and I've picked it up a bit. Often times, genre of writing and audience are tied together. Not many children are going to read college papers, so you needn't worry about making it accessible to them.

However, if your writing is targeting teenagers, then you don't need to worry about grammar as much as you would if your target audience was Professors. The more strictly you stick to grammar, the more educated you are assuming your audience is. While not entirely true in practice, that tends to be the thought. So if you're writing a blog post designed to attract teenagers, you can ignore grammar and use 'OMG' and 'LOL' and other internet short hand without it being too odd, but it would be inappropriate in a resume (something my friend, who is in HR, has told me has happened before).

Which brings me to the biggest point of all. Grammar is not as important as how understandable you are. Your grammar can be immaculate, but if you are targeting the wrong crowd with your writing and they don't understand you, there is little point. Grammar is, after all, a set of rules to make people more easily understood.

Whether you bend the rules or not, that's the most important part of grammar: how well are you understood? Can the reader understand what you are trying to get across to them?