What a wonderful age we live in, with all the technology that will soon have cars driving themselves, we can have face to face phone calls like in Dick Tracy comics, and even correct our spelling. But wait one minute. Correct our spelling? No doubt we have encountered that troublesome spelling correcting feature on our mobile devices and tablets. You are typing the word “doing” and the spell correct feature thinks you really meant to use the word “dung.” It does become laughable many times but uniquely frustrating. Though it is more frustrating when you read countless articles by “professional writers” and they succumb to poor spelling or bad grammar. In a recent article published in Modern Steel Construction I came across this line, “Still, there was enough interest that we added the program the conference….” What?
When items like these appear in our work, can we be trusted with what we are actually writing about? As an engineer, if I have poor grammar or countless misspellings, how can my designs be trusted? And are we in such a hurry to get some down on paper that we cannot take to the time to proof the material? I turn the page in that magazine to find an ad and it reads “HIGH quality. HIGH value.” How about we all practice that in our careers and personal life with our spelling and grammar?
Michael T. Daily, PE, DTM 