Facebook is peaking - will this effect the world of work?

Affect. Not effect. You can't "effect something" in that sense, only "affect". Sorry, not a great deal to say on the actual subject but here we are.

I'm sure the many readers whose fist language is not British English and who are not dyslexic will be ecstatic at your perspicacity and elucidation Maria.

Unfortunately you missed out the apostrophe before "Sorry", signifying your deletion of the possessive "I'm", and "we" are not "here" we are "there", since we were not with you when you wrote; therefore you too get a only a B+.

Two mee meenin iz mor improtint than crost teas an dottid eyes butt eech to hiz ur hur owun.

P'

Perhaps my perceived arrogance comes from the fact that English is not my first language, and I merely observe native speakers being careless with it. Native or not, I just expect better from someone who does professional comms on CIPD's behalf for a living, that's all. I live in a world where people are "recruiting for HR Manager's", and "should of listened" etc. and it does grind my gears.

In terms of my own background, I have had to take an English test to be able to enter this country (the UK), and I chose to do Cambridge Certificate of Proficiency in English, which I passed successfully. This is (for information), arguably, the most difficult exam for non-native speakers of English in the world, so that mark will do me (and the Home Office) just fine. Ironically, none of the British people I asked to do a trial go at that managed to actually pass it. But never mind.

I also come from a place of speaking 4 languages, whereas most Brits I know only speak English (just), so I demand of them to do that well, at least. Call me unreasonable :)

Petty arguing aside, I am actually very interested to hear your thoughts on the subject. We had a similar discussion with my team at work about standards of communication and quality of writing we should expect of HR professionals. Two of us were for maintaining a perfect style, whereas one of was of the opinion that, actually, it doesn't matter if someone starts an email with "peter" instead of "Peter", or doesn't bother styling an employee's change of hours letter beyond the legal minimum. Is it old-fashioned of me to expect a high standard of writing in HR?

Personally speaking I am much more interested in someone’s contribution to the debate than being marked on my English skills ( native or not).

I must admit I do find it somewhat discourteous to pick up a debate from six months ago on this point and not to use the opportunity to add value to the actual subject matter.

It would be a huge shame, for me, if people were put off making valuable contributions for fear of a misplaced apostrophe or a misuse of vocabulary.

I am definitely with Peter on the point ( for me) that getting the meaning across is by far the most important point - sadly we probably all fall short in the sights of the gods of grammar :-)

Personally speaking I am much more interested in someone’s contribution to the debate than being marked on my English skills ( native or not).

I must admit I do find it somewhat discourteous to pick up a debate from six months ago on this point and not to use the opportunity to add value to the actual subject matter.

It would be a huge shame, for me, if people were put off making valuable contributions for fear of a misplaced apostrophe or a misuse of vocabulary.

I am definitely with Peter on the point ( for me) that getting the meaning across is by far the most important point - sadly we probably all fall short in the sights of the gods of grammar :-)

You didn't notice my two optionally missed colons and the un-used comma then Keith? :-)

(That last being a horizontal smiley face, not bad punctuation).

Do you have a view on the Oxford comma now becoming prevalent?