Perfect Pitch: Please, Grammar, Don't Hurt Me!

I suppose I have slipped in the grammar department from time to time. Just writing a post about the subject escalates my paranoia, as I imagine every grammar enforcer out there scanning the material for errors in usage that may seem inconsequential to me, while setting off cringe-inducing alarm bells in the minds of truly qualified experts. I mean, I could split an infinitive or misuse a gerund at the drop of a hat and not even notice it. And believe me, you do not want to end up on the wrong side of the gerund police. I’ve heard tell they will take you into a back room and cut off your dangling participle. 

So the recent Harvard Business Review blog I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why raised some intriguing issues that are worth considering. The blog, by Kyle Wiens, is not without precedent, of course. The subject is fodder for much humorous wordplay on Twitter, and there is even a best-selling book entitled I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar. However, dumping a potential job candidate for the selfsame reason certainly takes judging to the next level. Imagine being voted off the island on Survivor just because you couldn’t tie a sheepshank knot.

Mr. Wiens' most salient point is that a candidate who takes the time to get grammar right will likely be someone who also takes the time to get the job done right. The attention to detail in the first aspect of one’s life crosses over into the second.  I certainly agree, as I do, ostensibly, with the entire thesis put forth in the HBR blog.

But let’s play Devil’s advocate for a moment. (Wait a minute, was I supposed to capitalize the word “Devil?”) We are, as a nation and world, at the middle ground now between a print culture and a visual culture. Like it or not, there are new generations coming up for whom grammar is not on the radar. Some of these young people will grow into geniuses who express themselves in ways that will fly in the face of grammatical rules. They could then go on to hire their peers, or their juniors, based on a whole new set of criteria having to do with what each party gleans about the other through a complicated series of visual and social cues that have nothing to do with the proper use of “your” versus “you’re.” 

And, take heed, sticklers: the words “selfie” “twerk” and “buzzworthy” are among the most recent additions to the Oxford English Dictionary Online. No matter what we do, culture will also be continuously defined by clever people who experiment with usage and create a lexicon that may offend the sensibilities of purists to the core. I don’t know about you, but if a truly original candidate appeared across my desk and smartly incorporated the word “selfie” into his or her resume, I might just take a second look at who I am dealing with. Even if that last sentence I wrote did end in a preposition.

As with any criterion applied to the search for the best candidate, some flexibility may be required in order to let someone’s gifts shine through. Keeping an open mind could, for example, make you more likely to consider someone who brings his mom’s chicken soup to an interview as a good will gesture. Or answers the question “where do you see yourself in five years?” with a rap song.  Or uses the natural bonding qualities of golf by challenging you to an office putting competition. 

That being said, all prospective candidates would probably do well to keep extraneous commas in check, and understand the difference between “your” and “you’re” and “their” and “they’re” and “it’s” and “it’s” before throwing their hats in the ring. A lot of people in the position to hire you have come up through rigorous training, and if they took the time to navigate the minefield of proper English usage, you would do well to at least not tweak them out with some obvious, sloppy error. Get familiar with the most common mistakes, and don’t make them.

The last thing you want is for your application to be stalled in its infancy. (Sic.)

 Mr. Wiens’ blog can be found here: http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/07/i-wont-hire-people-who-use-poo/