This bit of news may seem a bit arbitrary, but I hope you will agree after some consideration that this should be a subject near and dear to your heart as well. Although we do live in an age where immediacy has become the norm, I don't believe this means that proper grammar has to fall by the wayside. In some cases, an improper spelling or use of punctuation can completely change your meaning or cause other types of confusion. In professional settings--those involving business signage and other official documentation--having typos or other grammatical errors can compromise the image of your company. Sure, typos happen to the best of us, but I would expect that a serious business owner would double or triple check spelling and punctuation before sending anything important to print.

Although TEAL is just dealing with signage and other public venues, typos occur in many other places. In my previous job, one of my duties was to hire people to complete some ongoing freelance writing. I cannot tell you how many initial emails, résumés, and cover letters I received with typographical or grammatical errors. To me, this does not make for a great first impression. I had not met these people, so I didn't know whether they might actually be a terrific worker or possess other wonderful attributes that made them perfect for the position. All I saw was that they could not be bothered to run a spell-check or have someone proofread their résumé--that all-important document that can determine your fate before you even get your foot in the door. They also did not feel it was necessary to read over their initial correspondence before hitting the send button (or so I was led to assume, judging by the errors). Having so little to go by, and having dozens of applications to review, I could not help but have a prejudice against those who committed such errors--especially if coming from individuals who listed "superb editing abilities" among their qualifications.

Improper use of apostrophes, they're, there, their, whose, who's, its, it's, and so on may indeed be a quirky pet peeve of mine to the point of almost obsession, and so I applaud the members of TEAL for going out and setting a good grammatical example in such a tongue in cheek manner. In a time of instant and text messaging, where young people are abandoning proper structure in favor of immediacy, I feel it is more important than ever that there be an awareness of proper usage. The ability to communicate accurately in print form still plays a role in how you are perceived by others--especially in venues such as the Internet, where your words will be viewed by more people than ever before.