The Grammar Police

Just like Maria said it takes "al" kinds.  Too funny.

J.

I am the broker of our office.  I always scan the remarks of every new listing to check for spelling and grammar errors.  They are so easy to do.  Our MLS did recently come out with a spellcheck feature which has reduced errors.

Love it!  This is a huge issue for me!  I can't stand the way some agents pay no attention to the details! I was reviewing listings for a CMA and actually read:

"The kitchen and family rooms has a fireplace you can seen from both sides."

PLEASE!  Any 8-year-old could have done a better job!

Matt

Be of service! The rewards will come!

www.mattcrow.com

630-728-6051

We have a fairly recent addition in our office.  She has been an agent for many years in a variety of offices.  Yesterday she got a listing that belonged to a smoker.  She asked me if I had the names of someone who could help make it more marketable.  (I'm sort of the guy who knows somebody for anything in our office!)  I handed her 3 business cards: estate sales company to clear out the furniture, painter, and a carpet cleaning company.  She was impressed, not only that I had cards to give her, but that I was so willing to SHARE!  Can you imagine?  She said that in other offices people kept such contacts to themselves!  CRAZY!

Make it a GREAT week!

Matt

Be of service!  The rewards will come!

www.mattcrow.com

630-728-6051

Hi Kelly

I like your idea to be a spell check police.

I am pretty bad at it.

Tommy

Yep - just this morning at our office meeting I asked our manager if there was any kind of policy about proof-reading our office's listings - It sets the tone for how our agents are perceived by the public and by other realtors... and it embarrasses me to no end when I see a poorly written listing out of my own office...

 And, yes, those of us who throw stones shouldn't live in glass houses... I'll assume your line about "a agent" was just a typo!  :)  

Thank you !  I do a lot of the entry for the agents on our team and am a stickler for proofing what I type.  What gets me is when you have a conflicting rules.  I've noticed a couple of times that what I was taught in school was perhaps not what someone else was taught.  As an example:  I was taught that when listing things you should separate them with a comma until the final two are separated with "and" which replaces the comma.  Someone else was taught to use a comma along with "and".  So, if you are talking about the new carpet, tile, counter tops and appliances or should you be talking about the new carpet, tile, counter tops, and appliances?

Anyway, it's nice to see other people concerned with spelling and grammar as I sometimes think I'm being dramatic or stuck up about finding errors.  It's the Virgo in me.

I absolutely agree that there should be a proof reader in every office, it does reflect on the business.

Thanks for the fun examples of goofy writing.  I see this king of thing so often that I've come to think some agents simply don't know any better (I've read some pretty incomprehensible blog comments on Active Rain too).  My personal pet peeve is when they have "you" when it should be "your" -- a common error that spell checks don't catch.  I see this everywhere -- menus, ads, marketing flyers, brochures, etc.

When it's something important (like for a client or any print piece) I proof it and then have someone else proofread it too -- as a one-time technical editor, I've found this is the best system.

As far as commas go, we all were taught to use them in many places that current style books have dropped (e.g. before "and" in a list).  A lot of times when people don't know the rules they "over comma" their writing, thinking it's better to have a few extra commas than not enough!

Hi Keli,

That was great! Thanks for the laugh that came at a great time for me today! I appreciate your great sense of humor, while you were also being serious of course. I do agree with your advise... ask someone to proof read. If you have observed that someone does not have good writing skills, that doesn't make them less of a person, just offer to help them.