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MONDAY MORNING MESSENGER

Message Prepared For Members of the American Institute of Inspectors®

March 22, 1999

GOOOOOD MORNING, A.I.I.™

Today our flag is at half mast at Michael Leavitt & Co Home Inspections. This past week found Shelly and I dealing with the death of our niece from Dubois, Idaho. Death is never easy and it is especially tough when it happens to someone so young. Jocelyn Kristine Stricklan was just 16 years old when the car she was riding in skidded off the highway about 35 miles north of Idaho Falls, Idaho. She was launched through the rear windshield and was killed instantly as the car rolled multiple times. One other passenger broke her arm but the others in the car were (thankfully) unscathed.

Mourning the loss of a close loved one is all-consuming. Jocelyn was a bubbly, vivacious young woman who was loved by all who knew her. Although Jocelyn and her family have only lived in the small community of Dubois for 8 months, Jocelyn was known and loved by the entire town and her death was painful to many. Seeing her peacefully laying in the casket made it even more difficult. Thankfully, through our strong religious beliefs, we are comforted that we will be rejoined with Jocelyn again, but the mourning is for the loss that her parents, sister and three brothers are feeling. No longer will their big sister be there in the home. No longer will her joy, encouragement and hugs (which were plentiful) be felt.

The immediacy of death is sobering. We all have a departure date and time from this life, but when that time is unknown to most. Are our actions in harmony with our desires??? It has been said that man writes two books. One is in his head and the other is with his actions. The day of judgement occurs when the two are compared. With that thought, how close are your two books??? My two books have distinct differences that I am working on harmonizing. Today is the day that we can make proper changes in our thoughts and actions. Today is the day that we can better prepare to meet our Maker.

I apologize for the brief content of today's MMM, and I am thankful for the following contribution from Gary Holzbauer. Gary did not know that I was going to be having a difficult time composing any thoughts this week. I am glad that he acted upon the prompting to do so because his efforts have helped to lighten my load..... Thanks Gary.

SPELLING OBSERVATIONS

Gary Holzbauer took great care in composing these next thoughts. I encourage all of you to read it, internalize it, ponder it, and apply it to our own writing and correspondence as needed.......

I thought the following might make a good topic for the MMM.

As I've read the E-mails on the A.I.I. Inspector Hotline over the past several months, I've noticed a lot of misspelled words. While some of the errors seem to come from the author not reading what they have typed, I suspect that most were the result of not actually knowing the correct spelling.

Based on my own personal experience, it seems that most people automatically pay more attention to errors than they do to things that are correct. So if we want to not only appear more professional to our clients and real estate agents, but actually be more professional, I think it is important for all of us to do what we can to eliminate spelling and other language errors from our reports and other written or printed materials. This can be accomplished by
using the grammar and spell checker on your word processor, having someone else who has good language skills read what you've written, or pulling out the dictionary for words you're not absolutely sure of. A friend who I used to work with told me that he knew he was a poor speller, so he carried a small electronic pocket dictionary around with him to check his spelling.

Spelling just seemed to come easy for me since I was in grade school, but I know it is difficult for some people. I've had to do a lot of writing and some editing in my previous work, so I've managed to improve my writing skills over the years. Even so, I regularly use the spell checker on my word processor and AOL E-mail, and have my wife check any fliers or letters I write for other errors.

The following is a list of the misspelled words I have noticed in e-mail messages on the A.I.I. Hotline, along with the correct spelling for the word. In some cases, two words sound the same but have a different meaning and spelling and the incorrect word was used.

Incorrect Spelling Correct Spelling
granuales granules
reguard regard
hazzards hazards
reccommned recommend
safty safety
insident incident
sismic seismic
definate definite
requirments requirements
artical article
acceptible acceptable
proffessional professional
dawned donned (as in "donned my coveralls")
wopping whopping
impute input
inherant inherent
errected erected
knowlagable knowledgeable
tubeing tubing
pipeing piping
scair scare
apliances appliances
sideing siding
whether weather (use)
thots thoughts
gleen glean
advise advice (use)
comberson cumbersome
wander wonder (use)
discribeing describing
seperately separately
planed planned (use)
thaughts thoughts
reep reap
realators / realitors Realtors
alot a lot
resinding rescinding
nessacery necessary
confussed confused
stateing stating
perminate permanent
decieveing deceiving
convienance convenience
advise advice (use)

Gary, thanks for taking the time to compose this important reminder. The tongue lashing is well deserved and each of us stand some room for improvement. As to spelling in cyber space, there are many forums and chat rooms where spelling and capitalization are of no concern. If you haven't experienced one of these live talk chat rooms, they are very fast-paced and keeping up with the flow of information is difficult. Cyber space shorthand is the norm and spelling is far from important.

I believe strongly in the Pete Rose philosophy of "You play the way you practice." Pete was known for always practicing hard. He never slacked off and always came ready to play hard. This is the one quality upon which his reputation was derived. Nicknamed "Mr. Hustle," he would run to first base quickly when he was walked by the pitcher and many times slid into first base while trying to beat out the infield play.

I feel that our interaction on the AII™ Inspector Hotline should be treated as our time of "Practice." We should practice the way that we want to play. I have read the retort that "I don't bother with spelling in my e-mails because I am off the clock." The impression is given that care for spelling is lessened because it is the end of the day or an off-the-clock relaxing time, and that the spelling and grammar errors never occur in their work while they are on the clock. This is hog wash and we all know it. The same individuals will repeatedly, week in and week out, misspell the same words over and over in correspondence.

I am not immune to spelling and grammar errors. For thirty-seven years I have misspelled "ITS" in my writing. Just a few months ago it was brought to my attention and I have changed my ways. The MMM provides a mirror for my own imperfections of which all of you get to view weekly. Thanks for being patient with my spelling imperfections and grammatical mishaps. I encourage all of us to strive for better spelling and sentence structure. If you are using Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer you have built-in spell checkers. I encourage you to use them. If you are handwriting your reports, I encourage you to have some of them proofread so that you can eliminate your repetitive misspellings. Our writing skills are the way we make our living. Let's take Gary's admonishments to heart and improve our spelling.