21–30 of 59 posts
Pure and simple, they are lazy and their laziness affects people's livelihoods. There is absolutley nothing poor grammar tells you about a person that you can't verify in an interview.
Their, there, and they're what?
I mean, it's fine if you don't like quotation marks ("inverted commas") but don't then go and complain about other peoples' grammar because they don't "care about [those] details".
Also, "itses"? itses? You have got to be Jo King.
"I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why" Followed by irrelevant rationalizations to justify a pre-made decision. > Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies, iFixit or Dozuki, takes a mandatory grammar test. Extenuating circumstances aside (dyslexia, English language learners, etc.), if job hopefuls can’t distinguish between “to” and “too,” their applications go into the bin. If you…
to be fair, when "to" and "too" is not a typo, its quite insane. especially I sometimes see it from english native speakers, and one just has to wonder "how does this happen???"
How it happens: brain fart. We make mistakes for a lot of reasons, all the time, and it's not always logical, like the "it's" you got wrong while probably knowing full well the right spelling.
"if job hopefuls can’t distinguish between “to” and “too,” Why do English speakers consistently label spelling mistakes as "grammar" mistakes? Doesn't English have a distinction between spelling and grammar?
Someone using to vs too is not misspelling a word; they don't know the difference between two words. That's a grammar mistake. Would you say this is a misspelling? "I hope they share there food with me."
"I hope they share there food with me."
Of course this is a misspelling.
"if job hopefuls can’t distinguish between “to” and “too,” Why do English speakers consistently label spelling mistakes as "grammar" mistakes? Doesn't English have a distinction between spelling and grammar?
Someone using to vs too is not misspelling a word; they don't know the difference between two words. That's a grammar mistake. Would you say this is a misspelling? "I hope they share there food with me."
As long as the idea gets across that’s all that matters. No one will mistake too for to so it’s pointless to care.
I wonder if the grammar test is still used because for any non -writing roles he lacks validity to use it as selection instrument.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same reason a whole English speaking country also says "on accident" instead of "by accident" and "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less"... lack of critical thinking and momentum.
I get the problem with “I could care less” (taken literally, it’s the opposite of what they meant), but what’s wrong with “on accident”? It’s just an arbitrary convention that the common expression is “by accident”, and the other one makes sense by being parallel to “on purpose”. Edit: also “on command”, “on request”, “on occasion”.
His argument is based on an invalid assumption that grammar and languages is immutable or at least that there is only a single source of truth but that is not the case. Language varies with the geography and age and continually evolves and changes. As long as the idea gets across that’s all that matters. No one will mistake too for to so it’s pointless to care. I wonder if the grammar test is still used because for a…
However, I’d say that just because something is “living”, that doesn’t mean that it’s also saved from deterioration.
I don’t think we can easily do away with grammar and syntax without detrimental effects to language and communication.
It feels so narrow, almost like the author hasn't met enough people in their life. People get grammar wrong all the time for many different reasons that are not always "logical": tiredness, loss of focus, focus elsewhere (on the actual content, for instance), dys-something, lack of sleep, something else. And for some reasons, it's not always easy to spot our own mistakes when proofreading. But that's a very well-know…