My biggest pet peeve is when people use the wrong there, their, and they’re. My roommates and I often say that when a guy uses the wrong one of these variations, we are immediately uninterested. Kyle Weins would consider this a reason to not hire someone; similar to the idea that my roommates and I would not date a guy with poor grammar. Weins explains how unprofessional it is to have someone who uses improper grammar. I have to agree with him. The bare minimum to being a reliable company, source, brand etc. is making sure the information put out is written properly and does not contain any grammatical mistakes. If I were to look into hiring someone and their resumé used to when too was needed, I like Weins, would toss their resumé aside because society has molded us to believe things like grammatical errors or misspelled words mean the person behind them are unintelligent.
The misuse of certain words and grammatical forms bothers me deeply, but I also understand that this does not always mean the person is “dumb.” Why is it that when a person speaks “broken” english or has an accent, they too are looked at as unintelligent by society. Last semester, I was introduced to Mother Tongue by Amy Tan. Tan wrote about what it was like growing up with a mother who spoke “broken” English and had a strong accent. Her mother was denied jobs simply because of her accent. She was viewed as not smart and not worthy of being employed by different companies just because she sounded a certain way. This is absolutely unacceptable. Americans have become so set on the “typical” American accent and grammar, but that does not mean it is more correct or any more intelligent than any of accent or use of grammar.
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