"The president's Facebook page is littered with basic
grammatical mistakes and riddled with eye-plucking spelling errors. I thought
we have learnt our lessons from Ben Malor's debut press release debacle. Just a
week ago a press release on the asylum seekers in Brazil had "religious"
spelt as "relgious". I thought our siblings on the other divide would
have spotted it and make a gain, but I didn't chance any remark to that effect.
Every now and then, there is a snapshot of "silly"
mistakes on presidential press releases and social media handles. It is
becoming one too many for acceptability.
I am allergic to spelling errors and typos. Sometimes I pick a
document and the first thing my eye will spot will be a typo/error, obviously
not out of conscious effort to identify a problem in it. My private work
sometime ago thought I was out of malice keen in spotting mistakes in documents
until they understood me. My colleagues and I were able to manage the problem
and keep it at bay. For Heaven's sake, this is the highest office of the land.
The gaffes are utterly embarrassing. No excuses!
I consider spelling errors as more grievous and unacceptable than
grammatical mistakes - you may be able to defend the latter but you dare not
the former. As a matter of fact, if I am reading anything, and identify a few
spelling errors or typos, I won't continue. The wrong spelling of a word has
the propensity of overwriting the correct one in your head.
The admin(s) of the president's Facebook and Twitter pages must sit
up. Managers of presidential circulars must 'up' their game. And perchance,
spare us all the shame of being a Ghanaian on a social media. Pedantic is the
word.
The presidency should note: circulars are created with Microsoft
Office Word and by default autocorrect, grammar and spelling check preclude
words typed in UPPER CASE. Get an expert to configure your word processor
application to check for spelling or grammar in all cases (lower case, upper
case, title case, sentence case etc). Or better still type everything in lower
case first and change titles and subtitles to upper case. The shortcut key for
toggling between cases is Shift + F3 after highlighting the text. Does this
require a robotic scientist?
Lest I forget, I am not immune to grammar flaws and don't assess me
because I am me and myself. I don't represent anyone on Facebook or any social
media."
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