Rawlings Rant - BAD GRAMMAR

16 Grammatical errors estate agents must avoid.

I'm frequently amazed by the poor use of grammar in estateagency. I could almost forgive greengrocers for their amusing but ignorant use of apostrophe’s, but professional estate agents?

Poor grammar can suggest an inadequate grasp of language, a lack of respect for the reader or a disregard for detail. It could even be the make or break of whether or not a prospective client would use you. Do any of the following Christmassy errors ring a (jingle) bell?

“We’d like to invite yourself over for mince pies.”This unnecessary use of the reflexive pronoun “yourself” causes me great pain. I often hear this used by shop assistants trying to make themselves sound elegant. They always fail; it sounds pretentious and is plainly wrong – and I’ll bet they don’t use that construction with their friends and family at home! How can “we” invite “yourself”, when only you can do something to or for yourself?
“The team wish you a very happy Christmas.” Every time I see an example of this classic verb-noun disagreement I have to re-read the sentence, such is the affront to fluidity. Even the BBC get it wrong (as I did just then), with eg “the army are preparing to…”, “the government have announced plans for….” It’s one team, one BBC, one army, one government, so it’s the team wishes, the BBC gets, the army is, the government has.”
“For Christmas, I bought a green woman’s coat for my wife.”Unless my wife is actually green, this misplaced adjective can give the wrong impression.
“When the agent found a tenant for John’s house in time for Christmas, he was so relieved.” Who was relieved here; the agent, the tenant or John? A bit of thought in this can help avoid any confusion.
“Emma was delighted to have her offer excepted in time for Christmas.” Such incorrect choice of words really does affect me, except after a few drinks!

Here are some other examples of common grammatical confusions:

Your versus You’re: “You’re” is ALWAYS a contraction of “you are”. You’re welcome to your presents this Christmas. No "e"- no possession.
Its versus It’s: This can be confusing because it does not follow the usual rule. “It’s” is ALWAYS an abbreviation of “it is” and is, oddly, never possessive (unlike Santa’s sleigh).
Speaking of apostrophes: Many people struggle with this. An apostrophe is used in two ways, either as an abbreviation for a missing letter/s eg cut’n’paste, OR to signify possession, depending on singular or plural, eg “the reindeer’s bridle” (one reindeer) or the reindeers’ food (more than one reindeer).
Odd plurals: "Many residents have decorated their properties for Christmas". This suggests the residents have more than one property. The classic example is "Children, wash your faces." These weird kids each have several faces, it seems.
There versus Their versus They’re: Come on guys - there should never be any confusion over their meaning, but watch out for automatic spell checkers – they’re the worst offenders!
Fewer versus Less: “There is less snow this year, but I have sent fewer Christmas cards.” If you can count them it’s fewer, but for an uncountable quantity such as snow, sugar, commission (as opposed to coins), it’s less.
i.e. versus eg: These are frequently confused but easily sorted. “Ie” is the abbreviation of the Latin phrase “id est”, meaning “that is”. Eg.“the snowman was history, ie he had melted!” The use of “eg.” is to announce that an egxample follows.
Could of, should of: These could have, or ideally should have, been written like this. However, as could have, (especially in its contracted form could’ve) sounds like could of, some people write it this way too, which is grammatically wrong and looks silly.
To versus Too: "I'm going TO buy a Christmas tree TOO": This is more likely a typo than ignorance, but is often overlooked.
Obviously: The overuse of obviously by the BandQ assistant telling me that the Christmas tree lights were obviously battery powered makes me, as the customer, feel stupid. If it were so obvious, why did she feel the need to tell me? Avoid!

Although English is continually evolving, some of the above errors can change the meaning of words and phrases which, surely, is not the intention, as well as revealing misuses of our wonderful language. Our job is to clearly articulate what we are trying to say. And I make no apology for starting a sentence with “and”!

Just because others fall into the above traps, may I strongly suggest you avoid doing the same. Always get a colleague to proof read and challenge your material before it is published – your reputation is at stake!

And, if like my many estate agency and letting agency clients, you need a hand with relevant, meaningful and well-written content for your blogs, newsletters, social media etc, please do let me know HERE and I'll get some ideas, samples, pricing etc off to you before you can say "mince pies"! Have a great day.

Richard.