When I came to the U.S. from Europe, I thought I would not have any problems communicating as my English was very good. I started learning English at an early age and later studied it, but I soon realized that even though I could speak it quite fluently, I spoke more the ‘written’ English and not so much the way people speak on a daily basis.
So, when I went to play tennis I heard words that I knew but whose context did not make any sense. ‘Darn’ I remembered from my vocabulary studying days, but what does ‘darning’ socks and tennis have in common? It was, however, quite easy to make out what this word meant as it was only always uttered when a player made a mistake.
It happens every week that I find a flyer in my mailbox advertising lawn care or painting services, or a handy man looking for work in the yard or around the house. Each flyer is designed with nice colors and pictures and the text is worded carefully to get the home owner to contact the job seeker, yet almost every one of these advertising circulars contains an error, even if only a missing or added space. The same applies to menus from restaurants sent as an email blast. Last week I received a menu and counted six typos, three extra spaces and two missed spaces. The menu came from a rather respected restaurant. Is it just carelessness or do people not take the time to properly review or ask somebody else for help in reviewing?