Tips for writing (almost) flawlessly
With the increase in emails, good spelling is essential. Here are some simple and easy-to-remember rules to follow.
For a long time, spelling wasn't my priority, as my assistant wrote my letters,” confesses Eric Bouchet, an IT consultant. When his management decided to deprive him of this faithful assistant, his troubles began: “At first, only a few clients pointed out mistakes in my emails. But soon, it was my boss who slammed his fist on the table.” No surprise there: at a time when SMS language is all the rage, spelling hasn’t fallen into disuse.
Numerous mistakes in a letter always have a devastating impact on the author’s credibility. And Eric’s case is far from isolated: with staff reductions, more and more executives have to write letters, reports, and business proposals themselves. The problem has become so acute that the company Woonoz launched the Voltaire certificate at the beginning of 2010, allowing one to display their spelling level on their CV. Do you have doubts about yours? This advice will allow you to get as close as possible to the “zero-mistake” objective.
No longer get trapped by past participle agreement
Should you write: “Elles se sont parlé” or “Elles se sont parlées”? Mistakes in past participle agreement are the most frequent… and the most difficult to correct. Everyone knows the rule of agreement with the subject when the past participle is constructed with the verb être. Many also know that with avoir, you have to identify the direct object (DO) and determine if it is placed before the verb (“The studies we have conducted”). But when it comes to pronominal verbs, it’s a free-for-all. It’s not that difficult to avoid the pitfalls, however.
First step, as soon as a “se” or a double “nous” is found before a verb, ask yourself: “To whom? For whom?” If you can’t answer, agree the participle: “These products sold well.” If you can, it’s because the verb avoir has disguised itself as être: there is then no agreement. This is the case for “Elles se sont parlé”: “Elles ont parlé à qui? A elles.” Second step, ask the question “what?” and, as for the auxiliary avoir, see if the answer is before or after the verb. For example, “The unions found themselves leaders” (“They found what? Leaders”). But for “The customer checks the car he bought himself”, you must agree, because the DO is before.
Use mental images and mnemonic devices
Do certain words systematically make you stumble? Associate them with mental images. “To remember that enveloppe takes one l and two p’s, I visualize two people giving each other a letter,” explains Eric Bouchet. Similarly, to remind yourself that cime, unlike abîme, doesn’t take a circumflex accent, imagine that the top of the cime falls into the abîme. Of course, you’ll memorize these images better if you forge them yourself.
Other mnemonic devices allow you to brilliantly overcome certain difficulties. Thus, to know whether to write “leur” or “leurs”, apply this easy-to-remember rule: when “leur” is placed before a verb (“He opens the doors for them”), it is invariable; before a common noun, the trick is to imagine the sentence in the singular: “The sellers write their report” becomes “Each seller writes his report” and the answer becomes obvious: “leur” does not take an “s”. Should you put an “e” at the end of a feminine word ending in “é”? Yes, if you can “touch” it, like a “handle”. Words related to time (morning, evening…) also take one. But when it comes to an abstract term unrelated to time like “kindness”, “honesty”, “rivalry”… there isn’t one.
Only learn by heart what is strictly necessary
It’s a bit old-fashioned, but to remember the spelling of certain words “by heart” is essential. In particular for nearly 200 of them, because they are abstract and it is therefore difficult to associate a mental image with them. Fortunately, when it comes to the spelling of a noun, you can trust your computer’s spell checker: if it alerts you because you have written “parmis” or “ormis”, feel free to use the solution it offers you. In most other cases, however, caution is advised with this type of tool, as it can mislead you by failing to point out an agreement error or the use of one word for another (“cession” instead of “session”, for example).
If it’s not a question of ingesting the Bescherelle, try at least to remember a few precious rules. Those on the writing of numbers, for example. Thus, “mille” never takes an “s”, even preceded by another number (five thousand), and “cent” only takes one if it is not followed by another number (“three hundred”, but “three hundred and seven”). Other rules are relatively easy to remember: words beginning with “il-” take 2 “l”s, except two (île and îlot); those beginning with “im-” take 2 “m”s, except four (image, imaginer, imiter and imam).
Read yourself backwards to hunt down “typos”
On the computer, it’s easy to press the “send” button while letting mistakes slip through, most of them due to carelessness. If they appear on the first pages of your PowerPoint, the effect will be disastrous. To proofread efficiently, start at the end, that is, from the point to the capital letter. Disconnecting from the meaning of the text in this way forces you to concentrate on spelling. “Destabilizing at first, but effective,” observes Heidi Eon, Head of Trade and Transaction at Commerzbank, who systematically uses this trick in her professional exchanges. And proofread carefully on paper. Mistakes that you won’t have noticed on screen will then jump out at you.
Published February 28, 2011
Posted online March 1, 2011
