You know that nails-on-a-chalkboard sound? That’s the sound that goes through my head when I read a grammatical error. Do I have a problem? Maybe.

I came across two posts on Ragan about three weeks ago, and saved them for a blog because both posts conveyed the problem, but in a humorous way. The first was a video from February 2010. Check out the video here.

The second post was a compiled list of top 25 mistakes. My pet peeves:

1. Than/Then – There’s nothing scary about making comparisons!
2. Irregardless – Redundant! You’ve just canceled out the word.
3. Home/Hone – Unless you’re a pigeon, you don’t home in on anything.
4. It’s/Its – Don’t forget the apostrophe! Conjunctions are a beautiful thing.

I have to admit, I was that annoying kid in elementary school who corrected the teacher on a typo or other error. Don’t judge me.

In PR, we work with people who expect great writing. Just because we have editors at the wires to look over our work does not mean we can slack off, ignoring that apostrophe or not double checking the spelling of a word.

When pitching bloggers and journalists I try to be especially careful. I’m pretty new to this, so any mistake I make would probably determine my fate in getting a story written. But, since we’re admitting things, I’m always torn between anguish and levity when a journalist makes a mistake. It reminds me that they’re human, but it also makes me upset that no one caught the mistake before it went on the web, aka the point of no return.

I know languages evolve, but come on, we can’t all pretend to be Sarah Palin and make up words!

What are your pet peeves? What mistakes are you guilty of? Divulge your secrets!

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Technorati Tags: editing, grammar, PR, writing

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What is Cyber Monday?

I’m sure that by now we’ve all heard the term “Cyber Monday” which hasn’t yet earned the infamy of “Black Friday” but has gained some significant media coverage nonetheless. But where and when did this silly term originate? I was once told by a very reliable source that it originated in the early 2000s when office workers, still nursing tryptophan hangovers from the Thanksgiving weekend, would do or finish their holiday shopping online at their desks because many, if not most people still didn’t have high-speed internet connections at home. Or, perhaps it was just a clever excuse for procrastination! Whatever the case may be, a decade later Ethernet, wireless 3G and 4G are pretty much standard at home and on smart phones, so the connection theory doesn’t exactly hold up anymore, but are there really better deals for online shoppers the Monday after Thanksgiving?

According to a recent article from CNN, Cyber Monday is nothing more than a marketing gimmick and “has never been the biggest day of the year for online retail sales,” which usually (and ironically, I suppose) falls on a Monday in mid-December. One report suggests that featured deals on Cyber Monday are actually for stuff that didn’t sell on Black Friday (leftovers anyone?).

Did you do any shopping on Black Friday and/or planning to shop online today?

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In a consumer culture, it’s impossible for most people not to feel at least somewhat disconnected from the source of our goods, whether it’s the factories and sweatshops in Asia where our electronics and apparel come from or even the source of our food, right here on American soil (pun intended).

Thanksgiving has traditionally been a post-harvest holiday, when families come together to give thanks to God for blessing them with food, shelter and each other. The modern paradigm of Thanksgiving, however, has shifted away from its Christian roots toward new religions, namely American Football and Consumerism. Don’t get me wrong, I am an NFL fanatic (Go Patriots!) but unfortunately it seems like the zeitgeist of the 21st century Thanksgiving is characterized more by Black Friday bargains as opposed to breaking bread with one’s family.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon a new social media campaign commissioned by the AgChat Foundation called foodthanks.com, which lays out some simple steps people can undertake to express their gratitude for both the food we all enjoy and those people who help provide it. I encourage every like-minded person using social media to add the foodthanks.com link to their Facebook page and/or add #foodthanks to their tweets on WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24th.

On behalf of Topaz Partners, I would like to extend our thanks and gratitude to the farmers and everyone involved in getting the food from their fields and orchards to our tables, and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

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Technorati Tags: #foodthanks, AgChat, Facebook, Farmers, Social Media, Thanksgiving, Twitter

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