In an interview published on CNN.com today, George Lucas began “He’s a real guy. He’s just like us….He makes lots of mistakes.” Almost on cue, Harrison Ford said “It was the three of us, Steven, George and I, coming to agreement on the central notion of it all.”

Central notion maybe, but grammatically Harrison, it should have been Steve, George and me!

Not to be outdone, and proving that he also makes mistakes, Lucas then said, “Again, that’s the way it works with Steven and Harrison and I.”

The success of all three gentlemen only goes to prove my theory (see last week’s article) that grammar matters mainly to grammarians, and that as long as you can get your message across, most people don’t care about the odd misplaced “I”.

In my view, we enter grammar’s “Temple of Doom” when mistakes are made in important written documents or emails. People have lost jobs, lost contracts, or have even been passed over for promotions because of their poor grammar.

What should you or Indiana do if you have to write something important?

That easy. Just visit “The Temple of WhiteSmoke” for the grammar checker that turns erroneous “I”s into “me”s.

On the one hand, there were excellent tips on using “that” and “which” (avoid “which” like the plague), and when to use “that” or “who” (”who” is for humans, “that” for everything else). But then things got a bit tricky.

For example, in the phrase “whether or not”, the “or not” is actually redundant, since “whether” implies an option. But, for some reason, it’s OK to be “benignly redundant” and include the “or not”.

Confused? Me too!

On the one had I enjoy the that grammar enables us to communicate better. That is if we have time to understand all the rules. But on the other hand, I tend to stick with a principle I came across a few years ago, namely write to be understood – and if it’s grammatically incorrect, that’s OK. As long as the message gets over.

One caveat is that if the communication is an important one – a business letter, a college essay, or a business proposal – then use a grammar checker like WhiteSmoke to clean up the errors. It’s well worth the investment to avoid a critical mistake when something important is on the line.

Uses:
1. Adding an apostrophe to a noun indicates that something belongs to it. To determine whether or not an apostrophe should be added, conduct a simple test that turns the phrase around to be “of the…” subject.

• The boy’s cat or “The cat of the boy.” (correct)
• The lady’s purse, or “The purse of the lady.” correct)
• The boat’s sail or “The sail of the boat.” (incorrect)

In the third example, the boat did not have to take on the possessive form because the noun after “of the” was one of three exceptions for the “of the…” test: a building, an object, or furniture piece. Rather, it can simply be written as “the car door” to signify the door belongs to the car.

The apostrophe is placed in different parts of a word. For singular words, add an “’s” to the end, even if the final letter is an “s.”

• The king’s crown was silver.
• Jarvis’s writing is terrific.

For plural words that end in “s,” simply add an apostrophe.

• The cows’ tails swung from side to side.

When plural words do not end in “s,” add an “s”.

• The children’s rooms were untidy.

Note that for compound words and the last noun of a joint possession, an “s” is added.

• sister-in-law’s
• Jack and Jill’s

For contractions, replace missing letters with an apostrophe; but remember that it’s where the letters no longer are, which is not always where the words are joined. An example would be “is not” and “isn’t.”

• You are = You’re
• We are= We’re
• Do not = Don’t
• Should not = Shouldn’t

Misuse:
Make sure not to misplace the apostrophe because it can change the meaning of a word, such as “it’s” and “its.” Or, if it is missing from a word like “there’s,” it’s a spelling error: “theres.” This is especially confusing if the context suggests the true meaning might be “theirs.”

So pay careful attention to the apostrophe. Getting its usage right is critical to writing better emails, documents, and sales letters.

Let’s start to tackle the problem with how your email is structured.

The first step is to decide what it is you want a response on. Limit it to a couple of items per email. Anymore and you run the risk of the reader delaying a response while they research an answer.

Next, keep all the social talk to the start of the email. Things such as “How was your weekend”, “How are the kids”, etc. These are what I call “distractors.” Put them in the middle or at the end of your email and the chances of you getting a response to what you asked for just went downhill.

Next, pay attention to the layout of your email, and make it easy to read. Limit paragraphs to 3-4 lines max, or put your important points in bullets. When we read a computer screen, our tendency is to scan, and when we see big blocks of text, we often skip them.

The last of the “distractors” has to do with your writing, namely the spelling and grammar. Think of how you react when you receive an email with typos or grammatical errors. At the very minimum, it took your focus away from the email’s content. It might even have made you think differently about the sender.

WhiteSmoke’s spelling and grammar checker lets you check any document, even emails. It also suggests words that may improve what you have already written. The obvious benefit is that you will have more impactful emails with no errors, allowing your reader to focus on what you ask for and send you the responses you are looking for!

In a recent Yahoo News article, James J. Kilpatrick discussed the question “Why do we study grammar?” and that got me thinking. The reason I studied grammar was a). because the nuns forced me, and b). because it’s one of the most valuable tools any writer can have. In fact, it’s a necessity for writers and anyone in business who does any amount of writing.

Think of the times you received a piece of written work – an email or a letter – and it had grammar mistakes in it. Like “Its Friday today” or “Johns’ book”. Here’s what I believe our thought process is:

1. You’re reading the document and focusing on it
2. You encounter the error and spend time to mentally fix it
3. You dwell on the writer’s lack of grammar skills

The end result? You’re defocused!

So eliminating grammar errors is critical for not only getting our message across but also for getting the right response to our correspondence.

The obvious conclusion is to improve your grammar skills but that’s easier said than done. English grammar is pretty complex and not learned in a couple of sittings.

If you’ve tried Microsoft Word’s grammar checker you know how weak it is. In fact, I think it’s responsible for giving grammar checkers a bad name. There are some good ones out there worth looking at, notably WhiteSmoke grammar checker and StyleWriter.

White Smoke compares well with Microsoft Word and is by far one of the most in depth and thorough grammar checkers.

So call WhiteSmoke grammar checker a crutch, but to me it’s a smart move, and a small price to pay for ensuring my grammar is good. Keep in mind that grammar checkers will never be 100% perfect, but they do a good job of catching the majority of errors and will improve your writing.