You @ social media: Does spelling and grammar really matter 2 anyone?

It seems many in Web 2.0 World already have abdicated the issue of spelling, grammar and sentence structure. At the same time, grammarians and recovering English teachers such as I still are making daily use of our tsk-tsk reflexes as we navigate our daily cyber-activities.

No, I’m not talking about texting and tweeting, where character limits demand the barest bones of economy of expression. This is about Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs, which are different from texting. Your message may be a paragraph or pages, but you have just a few seconds to capture your reader’s attention with a compelling story – if they’re not confounded or distracted by unintelligible words or phrasing.

Employers also are looking at the online presence of potential workers. They’re apt to wonder whether a candidate can compose a business email, much less a proposal, if she doesn’t know that “irregardless” isn’t a word.

Social media and the widespread use of blogging have made publishers of all of us. That’s a great democratization of what once was an elite form of communication. In what now seems the distant past, only the very wealthy or fortunate few could make their thoughts widely accessible in print. Websites, blogging and social media now belong to everyone: from the very young to the very old, from the poor to the powerful: the marketplace of ideas is everyone’s mall.

The proliferation of online information and opinion can stimulate higher levels of education and discussion worldwide. Democratization doesn’t need to equal dumbing-down. Readers want to be treated with respect, and using plain and proper language shows your regard for your audience and reinforces your credibility. You have a message, you have a medium and you have a multitude of tools to check and even improve upon spelling and grammar skills. So, express yourself – but don’t forget to use spell-check!