I have had a few thoughts about blog posts for the past
couple of weeks and decided I would try to weave them together. The first thought
came at a conference I went to in which there were two prominent political
figures (who will remain nameless) giving speeches. During the first speech the
speaker made the comment “…wind beneath our sails” and during the second the
speaker referred to “paddling up hill.” I was taken off guard by the first, and
thoroghly astonished at the second; educated individuals in public office
making such mistakes. Now you might say “cut them a break, they’re very busy
people,” but I would counter with “shouldn’t people in leadership be a bit more
careful when speaking in public?”
The second thought came as I was reading a published document
today (can’t remember exactly what since I read so much,) and found a
grammatical error. It’s a very common
error, the mixing up of “there” and “their” but those are two very different
words and should not be confused as frequently as they are, especally in a
published article. The last thought (and straw) came while speaking with a
collegue. We were discussing, better yet, lamenting about staff behavior at
while on shift. Long story short, we ended our conversation on the topic of
respect and manners and the lack thereof.
I’m going to try and be brief in my summary. Regarding
respect and manners I initially thought I was just getting old, but I have
since changed that view. I fear that a large part of our society today is
simply living mindlessly. We have become complacent as we are inundated with
information by the barrage of talking heads and never ending social media. We
are failing to pay attention to the details of the spoken and written word.
Respect is paid to others when we spell correctly, when we listen to what we
say and correctly use idioms. If what you have to say is important, isn’t it
imperative you say it correctly? Have we become a society where we no longer
care what others think of us when we talk or write?
I have one of those brains (as do most people) that can read
jumbled words with “3’s” in place of “E’s’ but that is not the point of this
post. The point is… if you respect yourself and truly respect others, you will
make a point of carefully weighing your words whether written or spoken. Just for fun, I have purposely made three
spelling errors; please leave a comment letting me know if you found them. This is my opinion…. You know the rest.
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