Mistakes Cost Money

"Spelling mistakes cost millions in online sales," shouts the headline of a recent BBC news story.

I was fascinated to see this story. Spelling mistakes cost millions in sales? Really? If the article had contained hard data, it would have been a real coup for editors.

Alas, it's not scientific. But it is interesting. The guy making the claim is not an editor or writer, apparently, but an "entrepreneur" who publishes websites professionally. An excerpt:

Mr Duncombe says that it is possible to identify the specific impact of a spelling mistake on sales.

He says he measured the revenue per visitor to the tightsplease.co.uk website and found that the revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected.

I wrote about this issue a few months back. If a website is riddled with mistakes, I do tend to take the website -- and sometimes the entire company -- less seriously. To me, the mistakes make the company look careless and amateurish. If they don't care about communication, I wonder, how much do they care about their product?

I don't know if mistakes on a website would cut sales in half, like Mr. Duncombe claims, but I'm sure it would cut sales at least somewhat. What do you think?

I'd love it if some brilliant researcher would do a real study on how bad web editing affects web sales. It's seldom that you can put a hard dollar figure on the value of good editing.

Typos and the Folly of Autocorrect

One of my Facebook friends posted today about how he always misspells the word business as buisness.

I can relate. For me, I always typo any word that ends in -tion. Like, information becomes informatino, and relation becomes relatino. It's as if my Italian roots are showing through.

Even the best spellers on earth make typos. I think it's a sign that your brain is moving faster than your body. Your fingers are trying to type one thing, but your mind has already raced on to the next thing, so your fingers get distracted. It reminds me of when my two-year-old is all amped up to tell me something, but she stutters, because she's thinking of the words faster than she can make her little mouth pronounce them.

Auto-Co-Wrecked

Then there's the hilarious world of autocorrect. Some smartphones make their best robot guess at what you might have been trying to say when you made your typo. If you haven't seen it, you need to check out www.damnyouautocorrect.com for gems such as the following:

Quality in Educational Publishing

Actually, I was going to title this blog "Quality (Or Lack Thereof) in Educational Publishing"... but I decided to hold off on the cynicism.

Have you worked in educational publishing in America or Europe during the past few years?

If so, did you feel that your funding, production schedules, deadlines, wages, and quality standards were reasonable? Were you proud of the product your team produced?

Or was your reaction more like this: "How on earth can this publisher think that operating this way is going to produce a product remotely worthy of educating students?"

Quality Audit

If you chose the last answer, you might be interested in sharing your experiences in a new research project. (Gracias to Jen Murtoff for passing this along)

The following is taken directly from the researcher (Steve Ball)'s website:

Many experienced people in the academic and educational publishing sectors claim that there have been progressive erosions of important aspects of quality in the industry. These may affect, among other things, the value of the product, the credibility of publishers and ultimately the future of the industry itself.

Continue reading to learn more and anonymously submit your experiences.

http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/research/project/publishing_quality_audit/

The Grammar Nerd is IN

I can't believe I've never said this on this blog before, 10 months into writing the blog.

But if you are reading this, and you have a burning question regarding punctuation, grammar, spelling, writing, literary devices, your secret crush on your high school English teacher, or the relative merits of Twilight vs. True Blood -- Feel free to e-mail me anytime at jenallen74 (at) yahoo (dot) com. I will answer all questions here on the blog.

By the way, I have no idea if those cute little spam-thwarting tricks that people use -- e.g. jenallen74 (at) yahoo (dot) com -- actually thwart spam. But I get so much spam to that e-mail address anyway that it doesn't matter.

"Client Scorecard" Lets Freelancers Rate Clients

Last year I talked about starting up a Jen's List -- the equivalent of an Angie's List for freelancers and clients.

Well, someone else had the same idea. I'm thrilled to see it in action, even if I didn't get around to doing it myself.

Check out the Client Scorecard, brought to you by the Freelancers' Union. "Have you loved/loathed a company that you freelanced for?" it asks. "Rate them here."

You can rate a company from 1 to 5 stars, along with a description of your experiences.

Caveats: To start reviewing clients, you do have to sign up for an account with the Freelancers' Union, wait for the confirmation e-mail, click the link in the e-mail, log in, then paste the Client Scorecard link into your browser again because it's not available from the home page. Also, I believe the site may still be in beta-testing mode, though many reviews have already been posted.

A big thanks to Chicago's Northside Freelance Network for passing on the word of this great tool.

Webster's Dictionary Updates Definition of "Marriage"

Hi all! I've been away for nearly two weeks, part of which was spent at the beach.

Miss me? I missed you. Although there was something very restful and refreshing about not touching a computer keyboard for more than a week.

Anyway, today I learned something nifty. Merriam-Webster revised its definition of "marriage" based on the growing trend of states legalizing same-sex marriage. Previously, it had defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The New Definition

In its Trend Watch on June 30, Merriam-Webster Online reported a spike in lookups for the word marriage following the news in New York.

M-W's new definition of marriage includes a second meaning (see below). It now reads as follows:

a (1) : the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2) : the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage

The Dynamic Dictionary

It makes me happy to see dictionaries changing with the times. After all, if dictionaries were entirely prescriptive (i.e., telling us how we should use words), rather than descriptive (defining words as people actually use them), then they might still be telling us to speak in Old English.

I wonder if Merriam-Webster will one day jettison the "opposite sex" language entirely and just have one definition for marriage. Time will tell.

Commas: They Save Lives

Today's public service announcement:


*BEEEEEP* This has been a test of the Emergency Comma System. Had this been a real emergency, you'd have a lot of explaining to do to Grandma.