The importance of good English in business by Jolito Ortizo Padilla



What a Wonderful Life

"What is required is correctness, a consistent friendly , approachable style, and a consideration of what the intended readership will be able to understand easily"

  Why is good written English important and when should you use it.
Good English conveys facts and ideas clearly and gives readers favorable impression. In contrast, poor English gives an impression of ignorance, carelessness, low intelligence and unreliability. Good English has correct grammar, spelling, punctuation and word choice. It is practical , effective communication.

A business executive should use good English for written communication with others , within or between firms.It is essential for instructions , letters, reports , memos, contracts and all professional publications. Managers often have to write under pressures , but a conscious effort to write concise, plain, clear English saves time; it reduces the need for follow-up corrections and clarifications.

What is required is correctness , a consistent friendly , approachable style , and a consideration of what the intended readership will be able to understand easily. Your reader should not normally need to consult dictionaries or background reference works. Terms that are very familiar to you might not seem like meaningless jargon to a wider audience.

Grammar, spelling , word- choice and punctuation
If you make mistakes in the basic aspects of communication, such as grammar, spelling, word-choice and punctuation , can reader trust the accuracy of your deductions, forecasts, calculations and what you say are facts about business matters?

When you use a compound subject, such as industry and commerce, it must have a plural verb. If you use a compound adjective, it needs a hyphen unless the first word is an adverb;e.g. a high -risk strategy-the two words used as adjectives qualify the noun strategy jointly, not separately. A clear, bold strategy would not be hyphenated as the adjectives apply separately to the noun.

English nouns have only two cases: the common (subject and object) case and the possessive case. Be sure to put the apostrophe in the right place in the possessive case. Pronouns, however, have three cases, including the object case, as in me, you, her, us, and them.If the pronoun is a direct or indirect object, it should be in the object case.

Plurals need some care, especially when irregular, but sometimes alternative forms are acceptable , as in stadiums/stadia, fish/fishes. In compound expressions , think about which words need to be plural, as in trade unions and brothers- in-law.

It may seem illogical , but quantities are usually treated as singular, as if the words "an amount of " are understood: $3,000 is too much; 100 tons of steel is arriving tomorrow.

It is important to write names correctly, whether of people, places, firms or things. Titles of books are usually given in italics, with the main words having initial capital letters, as in How to Understand Macroeconomics.

Care is needed with tenses and timing. In 2010, a student copied from a 1998 textbook a passage stating that a certain matter had occurred at the beginning of the  century. One should have changed it to at the beginning of the last century. One should distinguish between perfect tenses, where the action is completed , and the continuous tenses, where the action is continues: I paid him has a different meaning from I was paying him.

Errors , word choice
It is amazing how many educated people make errors in word choice , using the wrong one out of two similar words. For example, complimentary means congratulatory (of remarks) or free (of tickets), but complementary means completing each other. Watch out, a single letter differentiates these words!

Be careful to make the right choices out of : assume/deduce, biannual/biennial, defuse/diffuse, discreet/discrete, ensure/insure, fewer/less, formerly/formally, infer/imply, its/it's, lay/lie, passed/past, practice/practise, stationary/stationery, their/there, whose/who's. To affect means to have some influence on (helping or hindering), while to effect means to accomplish fully. A fire in your warehouse might affect your profits but would not effect  them. Take care also with principal (main,chief) and principle (a rule, fundamental truth or ethical guide).

For clarity , correct punctuation is essential . The wrong punctuation can change the intended meaning. If you are not sure when to use commas, semicolons, colons, hyphens, dashes and apostrophes, consult an appropriate book. These are essential marks with different functions. The semicolon is particularly useful for joining two complete sentences ; this avoids unwieldy run-on sentences.

Capital letters can affect meanings. Sir Richard Branson's daughter Holly was correctly described as the Virgin heiress. The virgin heiress would have a different meaning. It is the River Thames, not the river Thames. In English , adjectives of nationality should have an initial capital letter: English wine, French brandy,Filipino basi.

Watch out for ambiguity , whether from double meanings , poor punctuation or even from word order. For example, it is better to write, This carpet badly needs cleaning, than This carpet needs cleaning badly. If you are dictating a report , be aware that English has many homophones (words sounding alike but with different meanings), such as their/ there, right/write/rite and cite/site/sight. A newspaper that Nikon speed cameras used censors buried under the road, when sensors was intended.

Precision
Be as precise as you can; it is better to say that your costs rose by 23% in the second quarter of 2010 than they recently rose a bit. Think how many decimal places are needed for a particular figure; always give the units where relevant. Your accountant might want to know that you have 102.33 employees (full time equivalent including part-timers), but saying approximately 100 employees is sufficient for most purposes. Your average profits per quarter for the first three quarters of the year might come up on the computer $60, 889.56, but calling that around $61,000 will usually be adequate.

Logical progressions
When writing a letter, report or exam answer, aim for a logical flow of ideas. Jot down in rough the main points that you wish to include. Look through them to decide on the most logical order, with one idea leading easily to the next. Start writing and cross item off as you include it. At the end, check that all points have been included. As you write , further ideas will probably occur to you. Jot them down before you forget them; incorporate them where relevant. With word-processing , such changes are easy to make. If you are going to use graphics , decide whether tables, graphs, pictures or other  display items should go near to the text referring to them, or be grouped together at the end.

Checking
For any important piece of writing (such as an exam paper), checking is essential. It is quite easy when writing or typing to omit an important word, which may change the meaning. You might choose the wrong word out of two similar words, such as prescribe instead of proscribe. A decimal point may be wrong. Check whether numbers make sense. Even a space can change a meaning. Her cake was noticed/Her cake was not iced.

Never rely on spell-checkers as they fail to distinguish  between similar words of different meaning. If you are using a computer, it is helpful to check for colored underlinings produced on screen by grammar-and spell- checkers , but do not automatically accept any suggested changes. use your brain.

Conclusion
There are many aspects to writing good English that apply to everyday business English , where correctness , good style and easy flow will create a favorable impression.