Re: Spelling and Grammar skills.

David...you are noticing something that is indeed quite common.  There are
many reasons:

1) The Webmaster "profession" has grown overnight from something done by a
few techies to a huge, commercially successful field.  There are not enough
people to fill all the positions, and so employees and freelancers are
rushing/being pressed to fill the gap.  This means allot of overworked
people who make mistakes.  It is not just the problem of smaller
companies...I have seen spelling mistakes on the front page of the NY Times
site...

2) Many of the people building sites are programmers, Graphic Artists, HTML
Coders...not English experts.  Myself included.  I am studying it again for
the first time in the 25 years since high school classes just because of the
issues you noted.

3) Of course, there's no need to learn it oneself...why not bring in someone
who alread has the knowledge?  I had my last site proofed..costed me 4
digits.  Its expensive...often more expensive than many small-medium sites
can afford.  We are often dealing with text that will be changed every few
days, so the charges are not "one time."  I am not an English expert, but I
can find plenty of them...trick is getting the client to pay for this.

4) I use a spell checker when I can...all my programming editors have one.
My email client doesn't, though.  I am using Outlook Express to write this,
but apparently I need to have MS Office installed to have the spell checker.
Office is on one of the other machines...I have no need to install it here.
I am also a poor typist, as my specialy is programming, which hasn't pushed
me to type for speed.  So, especially in email communications, the tools or
time may not be present.

Remember, the industry is brand-shiney new as industries go.  Its a
frontier, and so a bit wild and disorganized.  Your points are quite valid,
but its probably a bit harsh to catagorize us all in a negative way when
many are really trying to produce good copy.  The ultimate responsibility
lies with the client, though, as long as you explain the problem up front.
Professional proofers cost a significant amount of money, and need to be
employed for every change in the copy.

One other thing: email communications has rules that don't quite fit any
traditional pattern.  Although a written form, it borrows many of the
informal structures commonly associated with speech.  I personally get
irritated finding misspellings in my own posts, but the fact is that its
more often due to clumsy typing skills than stupidity...:).  Shorthand,
emoticons, spelling and grammatical errors are all accepted parts of the
email phenomenon.

D

----- Original Message -----
From: webmaster <david(at)ceoexpress.com>

I have to comment here.  This pertains to writing and so to html
writing.

Too many people on the web evidence by their horrifically poor
spelling and grammar skills that they either don't know their
English, are drunk or on drugs, have brain damage resultant from
such, are in too much of a hurry to use a spell checker or to be
careful of their work or some combination of the above.

Am I the only one who can see this or just the only one who knows
enough to care?  It came to mind again when it was also evidenced in
many of the messages I see coming through this list.

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