Yesterday night, to spoil ourselves a bit during a business trip, a colleague and I had drinks at the champagne bar in what is currently the highest building in London: Vertigo 42. The drinks are pricy but the view makes it worth the visit.
Then we headed over to Joël Robuchon, an award winning, Michelin star chef’s trendy restaurant where I had the vegetarian tasting menu and we stayed talking and dining until well past midnight.
I get a real kick out of these chic experiences. After all, these are the memories that stay with you. Zuma in Hong Kong, Spice Market in New York, Lamak in Ubud, Nobu in Dallas and now Joël Robuchon, are just a few examples of those special places where the occassional splurge makes my toes curl.
What are your favorite bars and restaurants to splurge at?
While the sarcastic comics and surreal quizzes of The Oatmeal have me in stitches, especially the one about the murder plotting cat (Simeon cuddled up on my trackpad while I was reading it), I’m mainly impressed with the ones about grammar. I’ve never seen the use of the semicolon explained in such a funny and simple way. And as I’ve become quite the grammar geek, this is right up my alley.
Forget about Esperanto. That ship has sailed. English has indisputably taken over as the international business language, no matter how hard the French still try. This standardization of our office vernacular certainly helps companies across the globe do business without the need for translation. Or does it?
As a member of the communications department, I am often tasked with editing, and have become particularly sensitive to mistakes in spelling, grammar and use of English. And in an international firm, Spanglish, Chinglish, Franglish, Dunglish and the like are as common as overinflated egos in the sales team.
Here is the top ten of common errors that make my skin crawl. Whether made due to sheer laziness or lack of understanding of the English language, office workers should eradicate these gaffes from their writing once and for all.
1) Would of, could of, should of. Enough! It’s: would have, could have and should have.
2) They’re, their, there / you’re, your / it’s, its. Proof your text before you hit that send button. You know the difference.
3) Lose – loose. To lose your keys rhymes with booze. Loose versus tight rhymes with goose.
4) Than – then. More than / then and there (both with an E).
5) On 6th December. It’s either “On the 6th of December” or “On 6 December”.
6) Overuse of the present continuous. You work at Company A. You are working when your friend wants to go shopping and you don’t have time. Facts and habits take the simple present.
7) Dear. Never, ever start an email with just the word “Dear” unless it’s addressed to someone you’re dating.
8) “Let’s see how it looks like” instead of “what it looks like” or “how it looks” and other literal translations. The best Dunglish ones are: “We hardly worked today”, “We just made up the annual figures”, “We have our sheeps on the dry”, and “It can go so no longer”. If you speak Dutch, all of these will make sense to you, but for English natives, these sentences are little more than gobbledegook.
9) The misuse of colloquialisms and slang. If you don’t know the jargon, don’t use it. Few things are as irritating as a Spaniard misusing the Irish “That’s grand”, let alone spelling it “grant”. Or someone saying: “It’s not rock and science.”
10) Lastly, mispronunciation. My colleagues often say: “I have an id.” Well, congrats. So do I. Of course, what they mean to say is: “I have an idea.” Idea does not rhyme with tea, it rhymes with Ikea. And then there’s the alphabet. Seems basic, but you’d be surprised how few people know it correctly in a language that is not their own. My pet peeve: Pronouncing .jpg as .gpg. J as in jail, G as in GI Joe.
What are the mistakes that make your skin crawl?
