To paraphrase Elizabeth Barrett Browning: How do I communicate with thee? Let me count the ways. According to aforementioned Liz, she loved to the depth and breadth and height that her soul could reach. That about sums up our communication possibilities. The depth, breadth and height to which we can climb in order to get our message out are quite expansive. Not quite unlimited, but almost. Communication is an expansive new frontier. And that is why grammar is important. With thousands of communications channels to shoot out our message, it’s more important than ever to pay attention to grammar, spelling, style and universally accepted rules of writing.
Why? Because we are overloaded with communication and information. Our time is being eaten up checking Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, blogs, websites, chat rooms…on and on. It’s unbelievably time-consuming to keep up with information overload and all the communication channels that come with this ever-changing era.
By employing shortcuts in writing, all we’re really doing is slowing down the comprehension of our words. It might be faster to type out Gr8; but, it still takes the brain an extra beat or two (or three or four) to translate shorthand to genuine language.
And it’s not shorthand. Our ability to quickly fire off an email, text or tweet usually means we don’t bother with grammar, punctuation, capitalization and spelling. But again, your speed in sending doesn’t equate to our speed of understanding.
More so, our shorthand and grammar-errant ways are beginning to filter into our more formal correspondence and communication, leaving the recipient to think we’re just not quite the sharp, educated and polished professional we might like to be viewed as.
The lesson is: slow down. Say what you mean to say, clearly and cleanly; pay attention to grammar and style. A good thing about the shortness of social media is that we can learn how to be more concise and succinct. But adherence to good grammar is still paramount in good writing and communication, whatever the channel.