Page 37 - How to write effective business English your guide to excellent professional communication by Fiona Talbot

26 How to Write Effective Business English

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Quite understandably, I was not at all happy, especially when pre-
sented with an invoice to pay for this appalling entry. Can you see
why? Look closely and you’ll see at least one mistake in each para-
graph. Some are spelling mistakes, such as ‘infividual’ for ‘individual’,
‘breifing’ for ‘briefing’ and ‘expereince’ for ‘experience’. Some are in-
consistencies, such as business English and Business English. Both may
be used, but it’s better style to keep to a single use, certainly within one
paragraph. The word innovative suddenly has a capital ‘I’, thus we
find ‘Innovative’ even though the word is mid-sentence. And the list
goes on. One thing is sure: nobody ran a spellcheck or grammar check.
What ultimately was the cost of this regrettable incident? Well,
it might surprise you that there was an actual cost to pay on as
many as five different levels! You see:
1 I refused to pay the invoice because the entry was incorrect, so
the company suffered the loss of that income.
2 That company then had to redraft a correct entry, which cost
them duplication of work.
3 They then had to make arrangements to replace the incorrect
entry at another time, at their own further cost.