Spelling and grammar – do they matter?

Alan Payling asks whether using the Queen’s English is important for the coach trade and, whether it could be costly if an operator doesn’t get it right

From time to time, I look at the websites provided by coach operators. When I do, I sometimes come across sites that contain the odd spelling mistake and poor use of grammar. But the other day, I came across a coach operator’s website that had a large number of glaring errors in the way they had used the English language.

Let me give you a flavour of the manner in which this firm promotes itself. We’ll call them ‘Can’t Spell Coaches.’ They are trying to attract business from the corporate sector and do so by saying: [wlm_nonmember][…]

[/wlm_nonmember][wlm_ismember]“Our Volvo Vanhool is fully equiped for your Corporate needs.” Now, excuse me, but if a coach operator can’t get the name of their own coach right, then there is something seriously amiss in their marketing strategy, not to mention the spelling mistake and poor grammar that is apparent.

When the company talks about the tours they’ve operated on a contract basis, they say that they were: “offering high quality accomodation and cuisine with Day Excursions included.” Again if a coach operator that is in the tour business can’t spell ‘accommodation’ correctly, it leaves something to be desired. Despite the poor English on display for all the world to see, they have just purchased two new vehicles, which: “with the very Highest of Specifiaction were delievered.” In the education sector, the company can also provide: “coaches/buses for you school trips” and for the school contracts they already have “Schollar passes” can be purchased from the company.

There were a lot more mistakes besides the samples above. The question in my mind here is: does good English matter? For a second opinion, I asked a friend of mine called Maud what she thought. She was quite forthright: “If I saw spelling like that I would think that they were rubbish. I wouldn’t have anything to do with them. I’d go somewhere else.”

So, Maud was not impressed either, particularly when the mistakes that were apparent could have been easily corrected in 10 minutes. Alas, it just gives the impression that here is a company that doesn’t consider that paying attention to detail matters. But, they are obviously doing well and I am not suggesting that, overall, this is anything other than a professional, well-run firm – with the stark exception of their website of course. That looks like it was written by a 12-year-old using what passes on social media these days for English: “no Wot I min, Innit!”

This is on a par with the oft criticised practice of leaving the most junior and inexperienced member of staff to answer the phone. Customer interfaces like the telephone, and nowadays the internet, are absolutely crucial in generating business. To ignore the image that is projected when they are used so badly is to seriously underestimate their importance. Quite how the author of this website even managed to integrate so many spelling mistakes into the website in the age of spell checkers baffles me.

Now, turning back to Maud, why do I think what she has to say is of any relevance here? Well, let me tell you a little bit more about her. Maud is a retired professional lady of a certain age, hale and hearty, who is active in her local village community in north Somerset. She went to school at a time when the three R’s were paramount in one’s education. She has many friends in the village – quite a well-to-do village it must be said – who are also of a certain age and who participate together in lots of communal activities. Having tried coach holidays individually or as couples, they are thinking about joining forces to go away together. One option is a tour of the Scottish Highlands. Maud has been asked to sort it out.

That’s right: Maud is a nascent group organiser. Her starting point in finding a coach operator is to look at their websites. Oh dear, as we have already heard, Maud is not very impressed with what she saw on the website referred to above. Not at all, oh dear me, no. That will never do, not for dear old Maud, it won’t.

Coach operators will know what sort of money is involved in providing a seven day tour of Scotland. And all possibly gone west, or, north, because of a failure to spend 10 minutes checking a website is written using the Queen’s English correctly.

So, does spelling and grammar matter? I can think of between 15,000 and 20,000 reasons why it does – and that’s just Maud’s first tour that’s gone begging. She is quite possibly going to have a few more fat cheques burning a hole in her purse in the near future that will go where the Queen won’t be offended by the way her language is used. So yes, it matters.[/wlm_ismember]