Tag Archives: english language

The Lost Art of Writing

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My tongue is still suffering from blood loss from the biting I give it every time I find myself dealing with teachers from my children’s schools. ltr writing

The teachers are well educated with most holding at least a master’s degree from an accredited school. From what I can tell, most have been teaching for a minimum of 10-15 years if not longer. 

So why is it so difficult to communicate with them?

I wrote a simple email to one teacher requesting information about my child’s yearbook today.  Here’s the email I sent and received… (of course, you’ll need to read from the bottom up.)

Danny Chung,

You can send them to me and i will pass them to the appropriate student, A***e B**d thanks P R*****h

 >>> <Danny.Chung@******.***.mil> 11/30/2009 12:18 PM >>>

Mr. R*****h,

I have submitted a form for a personalized “dedication” page in the yearbook and would like some information as to the details of when and to whom I should submit the photos.

 Thank you,

-Danny Chung

 

As you can see, the teacher didn’t bother with a salutation, proper punctuation, nor any semblance of sentence structure.  Most importantly, he fails to address my request for “details”.  He simply writes back as quickly as possible with little regard for what I am requesting.  This is a complete failure to communicate!  And this is not an isolated incident.  From the front office, to the counselors, and to the very teachers, whether speaking on the telephone or by email, this example is about as good as it gets.

This is a rudimentary skill that is clearly lacking in our public schools.  How are we to expect our students to go out and get jobs if the very teachers educating them cannot lead by example?

More to the point of searching for that “dream job”, remember what you write can have serious consequences.  Whether they are positive or negative depends entirely upon you.

How will you brand yourself?

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A Public Affairs Officer for the Marines, Danny is an innovative and forward-thinking executive, with a passion for leveraging effective communications to fuel employee-engagement, build community goodwill, and drive profits.

Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say

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I was sitting in the student lounge at Loyola‘s Columbia Campus taking slow bites out of my Cheeseburger-Cheeseburger cheeseburger. And if not for this one lady talking on her cell phone, I might have enjoyed this burger.communication_cans

My attempt to not listen to her conversation was an act in futility. I could not only hear her, but I could hear the person on the other side describing her indecision as to what to do about an immigration issue.  I won’t name names…  I’m not even certain how the two were actually communicating.

But more to the point, every other word out of her mouth consisted of “whatever”, “like”, and “you know”. She would begin her sentence, then abruptly pause, and fill in the void with “you know”.

Her entire conversation for 10 minutes was filled with those three words (well, actually 4 if you count “you know”).

It occurred to me that we fill our speech with umms, ahhs, you knows, and whatevers because we are inept at speaking coherent English.  Our speech is filled with slang, jargon, and sounds.  We speak in examples vice descriptions.  Pictures rather than words.

Not only is our acumen in the English spoken word waning, but so are our writing skills.

I challenge you to correct yourself next time you find yourself speaking this way and replace those words with specific words, which depict what you actually mean to say.

A good boss once told me “say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

As a Public Affairs Officer for the Marines, Danny is an innovative and forward-thinking executive, with a passion for leveraging effective communications to fuel employee-engagement, build community goodwill, and drive profits.