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I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

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Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#31

Post by giraffe_lady »

redeeman wrote: post #8
coldtea wrote: post #2

"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???"

The written form is derived from the spoken form and not the other way around. This is easy for highly literate people in writing-focused societies to forget, and our education tends to not explicitly address it.

But there it is. To/too, their/they're, it's/its, should of/should've etc are all transcription errors, not a failure to understand or deploy standard grammar.

Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#32

Post by jraph »

PebblesRox wrote: post #29
jraph wrote: post #17

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…

I wish there was an easy way to correct typos online for the sake of the next person. I understand that this would open the door wide for abuse, but I can dream, right?

It occurred to me too. Something like a browser extension, that would have a database of fixes and/or automatic submission to the author so they can fix it.

But the drawbacks might unfortunately make it not worth the effort indeed (people can get easily offended, the extension could have privacy issues, could be abused, etc).

Years ago I had developed a small module so people could submit fixes to my website. It's not up anymore.

In the end, many people don't care that much too.

Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#33

Post by giraffe_lady »

modestygrime wrote: post #16
klwantr wrote: post #14

"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."

This is a misunderstanding of how language works. The written form is derived from the spoken form and not the other way around. Using the wrong letters for words that are phonetically identical in your dialect is a simple transcription error, not a failure to understand the difference between the words.

Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#34

Post by giraffe_lady »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #15
klwantr wrote: post #14

"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?

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.

This is literally just dialect it has nothing to do with critical thinking.

Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#35

Post by mc32 »

liquidk wrote: post #30

Unfortunately this is a fairly shortsighted and superficial article which results in severely reducing the pool of people you can work with to a native speaker heavy demographic. The core of the problem is that it assumed care for detail in a domain the writer of the article is comfortable with, translates to care for detail in every other domain. I find this to be a particular self centric view of the world. It is s…

Non-native speakers often have better spelling than native speakers, though grammar mistakes do become apparent in non-native speakers.

It grates me when I have to read business communication with poor spelling or poor grammar, especially when done by native speakers --just as much as it grates native speakers of non-English languages when I attempt to speak their language non-natively and they admonish me for my non-native mistakes.

Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#36

Post by coldtea »

redeeman wrote: post #8
coldtea wrote: post #2

"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???"

>to be fair, when "to" and "too" is not a typo, its quite insane.

Huh?

It's not only almost always a typo (as opposed to the kind of mispelling where the person writing doesn't know the difference between the two spellings), it's also a typo that's trivial to make.

Doubly so if you have ADHD, and ten times so if you have dyslexia. But even for the average person, it's just an extra easy to slip o, and as a spelling looks totally legit at a quick context-free glance (which makes sense, since both to and too are actual words).

Literally the opposite of a mispelling "quite insane".

Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#37

Post by SilasX »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #27
SilasX wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

On implies that despite being an accident it was somehow intentional. You "arrive on time" but you don't "fall over on accident". By implies some process not within your control.

> On implies that despite being an accident it was somehow intentional.

Sorry, that doesn’t seem inherent to the preposition “on”.

> By implies some process not within your control.

“We’ll do it, by hook or by crook.”

Also, it’s odd that you want to be this pedantic but not out the referenced prepositions in quotes so they’re not taken as being applied to the following word.

Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#39

Post by lhartmann »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #34
lloydatkinson wrote: post #15

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.

This is literally just dialect it has nothing to do with critical thinking.

"I could not care less" means: "My interest is already at zero". The other form is wrong, its proponents sometimes cite irony, but that's very weak.

Re: I won’t hire people who use poor grammar (2012)

#40

Post by hgsgm »

mc32 wrote: post #35
liquidk wrote: post #30

Unfortunately this is a fairly shortsighted and superficial article which results in severely reducing the pool of people you can work with to a native speaker heavy demographic. The core of the problem is that it assumed care for detail in a domain the writer of the article is comfortable with, translates to care for detail in every other domain. I find this to be a particular self centric view of the world. It is s…

Non-native speakers often have better spelling than native speakers, though grammar mistakes do become apparent in non-native speakers. It grates me when I have to read business communication with poor spelling or poor grammar, especially when done by native speakers --just as much as it grates native speakers of non-English languages when I attempt to speak their language non-natively and they admonish me for my non…

There is no such thing as a grammar mistake, only a grammar inconsistency. Intelligent people use grammar consistently up to the moment where that consistency impedes clear communication. A grammar "mistake" is a foreign dialect.

Unintelligent people babble wisps of ideas and leave it to the listener to make sense of them.

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