Job candidate - best spelling/grammar tests

[Anna]

BTW, I am not going to argue the merits of verifying spelling/grammar abilities as an essential part of the hiring process. If you're a poor spelling I'm sure you'll find a job elsewhere, perhaps the Toronto Star, where editors seem to have been removed.

 

[Admiral Beez]

"If you're a poor spelling" indeed! I never claimed to be perfect, but argh, that's a bad one. I must have edited an original thought where that made sense and turned it nonsensical.

I had to remind a staff writer today that data and criteria are plural, as in "the data are wrong, but the criteria are correct", not "the data is wrong, but the criteria is correct". And don't get me started on basis - doesn't anyone remember that basis is singular, bases is plural? Best way I remember this from elementary school is that it's the same rule as one thesis and several theses.

 

[Admiral Beez]

A big tell for me is simply how they write their e-mail to you. How they address you and how they sign off. Proper sentence structure and basic paragraphing is also very important.

When I get an email within a business capacity and we aren't fully acquainted, it better be written like a letter and not a tweet or text message.

I get the feeling that people are uncertain of e-mail etiquette. If you don't know more, would you start your email with "Dear Mr. Beez"? If I received this, I'd think it was a spambot.

Does anyone start their e-mails with "Dear" anymore? What are the alternatives? You can't use Hi, Hello sounds sarcastic. Do you drop the Mr? What about writing to women?

Do you consider indentation an essential element of basic paragraphing?

 

[wild goose chase]

I had to remind a staff writer today that data and criteria are plural, as in "the data are wrong, but the criteria are correct", not "the data is wrong, but the criteria is correct". And don't get me started on basis - doesn't anyone remember that basis is singular, bases is plural? Best way I remember this from elementary school is that it's the same rule as one thesis and several theses.

Use of the singular "data" has become pretty mainstream though in that this usage probably outnumbers the original usage. The acceptability of it as a singular noun probably depends on which style guide, or rule book you use, with many coming to accept the popular usage.

I've noticed that the people that use the plural form for data as originally intended tend to be those that work in more technical fields, since it's only in certain lines of work/writing that you'll use the singular form datum, which is rarely encountered in daily life.

 

[Johnny Au]

"Media" are actually the plural of "medium."

 

[wild goose chase]

Same with "bacteria" and "bacterium". I think in a lot of those cases, it's the plural being used way more often than the singular in daily speech that it gets treated as the singular instead.

 

[wild goose chase]

If you want to go really far back, "you" was originally plural and "thou" singular.