When Caren Berg told colleagues at a recent staff meeting, 'There's new people you should meet,' her boss Don Silver broke in, says Ms. Berg, a senior vice president at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., marketing and crisis-communications company。

　　凯伦•伯格(Caren Berg)是佛罗里达州劳德代尔堡(Fort Lauderdale)一家营销与危机传播管理公司的高级副总裁。她说，当她在最近的员工会议上对同事们说“有几个新人你们应该见见”(There's new people you should meet)时，她的老板唐•希尔福(Don Silver)打断了她。

　　'I cringe every time I hear' people misuse 'is' for 'are,' Mr. Silver says. The company's chief operations officer, Mr. Silver also hammers interns to stop peppering sentences with 'like.' For years, he imposed a 25-cent fine on new hires for each offense. 'I am losing the battle,' he says。

　　希尔福说，每次听到有人把“are”误用做“is”我都感到厌烦。身为公司首席运营长的希尔福还反复要求实习生停止在句子中滥用“like”。多年来，他对新人的要求是每犯规一次罚25美分。他说，这场战斗我快输了。

　　Managers are fighting an epidemic of grammar gaffes in the workplace. Many of them attribute slipping skills to the informality of email, texting and Twitter where slang and shortcuts are common. Such looseness with language can create bad impressions with clients, ruin marketing materials and cause communications errors, many managers say。

　　公司管理者们正在设法对抗工作场合中如传染病般肆意蔓延的语法错误。他们中的很多人将语法技巧的退化归咎于电子邮件、短信和推特(Twitter)，人们喜欢用非正式的语言，俚语和简写很常见。许多管理者说，这种语言的松散性会给客户留下不好的印象，营销材料因之遭到了破坏，还会导致沟通错误。

　　There's no easy fix. Some bosses and co-workers step in to correct mistakes, while others consult business-grammar guides for help. In a survey conducted earlier this year, about 45% of 430 employers said they were increasing employee-training programs to improve employees' grammar and other skills, according to the Society for Human Resource Management and AARP。

　　纠正起来并不容易。有些老板和同事会介入进来纠正错误，而有些人则是求助于商务语法指导。在美国人力资源管理学会(Society for Human Resource Management)与美国退休人员协会(AARP)今年早些时候所进行的一项调查中，430家雇主中有45%左右说，他们正在增加员工培训项目以提高员工的语法及其他技巧。

　　'I'm shocked at the rampant illiteracy' on Twitter, says Bryan A. Garner, author of 'Garner's Modern American Usage' and president of LawProse, a Dallas training and consulting firm. He has compiled a list of 30 examples of 'uneducated English,' such as saying 'I could care less,' instead of 'I couldn't care less,' or, 'He expected Helen and I to help him,' instead of 'Helen and me.'

　　《加纳现代美语用法》(Garner's Modern American Usage)作者、达拉斯培训咨询公司LawProse总裁布莱恩•加纳(Bryan A. Garner)说，我对推特上“猖獗的文盲现象感到震惊”。他整理出了30个“没文化英文”的例子，比如不说“I couldn't care less”(毫不在乎)而说“I could care less”，不说“He expected Helen and me to help him”(他希望海伦和我去帮他)而说“Helen and I”。

　　Leslie Ferrier says she was aghast at letters employees were sending to customers at a Jersey City, N.J., hair- and skin-product marketer when she joined the firm in 2009. The letters included grammar and style mistakes and were written 'as if they were speaking to a friend,' says Ms. Ferrier, a human-resources executive. She had employees use templates to eliminate mistakes and started training programs in business writing。

　　人力资源高管莱斯利•费里尔(Leslie Ferrier)说，当2009年加入公司时，员工们向新泽西州泽西城一家护发护肤产品营销公司的客户发送的邮件让她大吃一惊。费里尔说，信件内容有很多语法和格式错误，而且写得像是“跟好朋友说话”。她让员工们使用模板来避免错误，并开设了商务写作培训项目。

　　Most participants in the Society for Human Resource Management-AARP survey blame younger workers for the skills gap. Tamara Erickson, an author and consultant on generational issues, says the problem isn't a lack of skill among 20- and 30-somethings. Accustomed to texting and social networking, 'they've developed a new norm,' Ms. Erickson says。

　　在美国人力资源管理学会与美国退休人员协会联合进行的那项调查中，大多数参与者将这种语法技巧的欠缺归咎于年轻人。代际问题作家及顾问塔玛拉•埃里克森(Tamara Erickson)说，问题并不在于二三十岁的人缺乏技巧。埃里克森说，由于习惯了发短信和社交网络，“他们形成了一种新的规范。”

　　At RescueTime, for example, grammar rules have never come up. At the Seattle-based maker of personal-productivity software, most employees are in their 30s. Sincerity and clarity expressed in '140 characters and sound bytes' are seen as hallmarks of good communication -- not 'the king's grammar,' says Jason Grimes, 38, vice president of product marketing. 'Those who can be sincere, and still text and Twitter and communicate on Facebook -- those are the ones who are going to succeed.'

　　比如在西雅图个人办公软件制造公司RescueTime，大家就从来就没有担心过语法规范的问题。这里大多数员工都是三十多岁。38岁的产品营销副总裁杰森•格里姆斯(Jason Grimes)说，用“140个字符和声音字节”真诚而清晰的表达被视为良好沟通的标志──并不是语法为王。他说，能够真诚表达而且依然发短信发微博并在Facebook上交流的人，他们才是会成功的人。

　　Also, some grammar rules aren't clear, leaving plenty of room for disagreement. Tom Kamenick battled fellow attorneys at a Milwaukee, Wis., public-interest law firm over use of 'the Oxford comma' -- an additional comma placed before the 'and' or 'or' in a series of nouns. Leaving it out can change the meaning of a sentence, Mr. Kamenick says: The sentence, 'The greatest influences in my life are my sisters, Oprah Winfrey and Madonna,' means something different than the sentence, 'The greatest influences in my life are my sisters, Oprah Winfrey, and Madonna,' he says. (The first sentence implies the writer has two celebrity sisters; the second says the sisters and the stars are different individuals。) After Mr. Kamenick asserted in digital edits of briefs and papers that 'I was willing to go to war on that one,' he says, colleagues backed down, either because they were convinced, or 'for the sake of their own sanity and workplace decorum.'

　　此外，有些语法规则是模糊的，导致出现很大的分歧空间。在威斯康星州密尔沃基的一家公益律师事务所，汤姆•卡梅尼克(Tom Kamenick)与其他律师就“牛津逗号”(Oxford comma)产生了争论。牛津逗号是放在连接一系列名词的“and”或“or”前面的额外逗号。卡梅尼克说，不加这个逗号会改变句子的意思，比如说，“一生中对我影响最大的人是我的姐姐，奥普拉•温弗里(Oprah Winfrey)和麦当娜(Madonna)”，就和“一生中对我影响最大的人是我的姐姐，温弗里•奥普拉，和麦当娜”的意思不同。(第一个句子暗示作者有两个名人姐姐，第二个句子说的是作者的姐姐和两个明星是不同的人。)卡梅尼克说，他在诉讼摘要和文件的电子校订中声称“我愿意就这个问题打一仗”后，他的同事们就让步了，可能是由于被说服了，或者是“出于他们自己的明智和工作场所的礼貌”。

　　Patricia T. O'Conner, author of a humorous guidebook for people who struggle with grammar, fields workplace disputes on a blog she cowrites, Grammarphobia. 'These disagreements can get pretty contentious,' Ms. O'Conner says. One employee complained that his boss ordered him to make a memo read, 'for John and I,' rather than the correct usage, 'for John and me,' Ms. O'Conner says。

　　帕特里西亚•欧康纳(Patricia T. O'Conner)写了一本幽默的针对有语法困难者的指南书。她在自己与人合写的博客“语法恐惧症”(Grammarphobia)中梳理了工作场合中的语法争端。她说，这些分歧会变得相当有争议。她说，有一个员工抱怨说老板要求他为“约翰和我”念一份备忘录，他用的是“for John and I”，正确的说法应该是“for John and me”。

　　In workplace-training programs run by Jack Appleman, a Monroe, N.Y., corporate writing instructor, 'people are banging the table,' yelling or high-fiving each other during grammar contests he stages, he says. 'People get passionate about grammar,' says Mr. Appleman, author of a book on business writing。

　　杰克•爱普尔曼(Jack Appleman)是纽约州门罗市(Monroe)的公司写作指导师，也是一本商务写作书籍的作者。他说，在他开设的工作场合写作培训项目中，举行语法比赛时，“人们都在拍桌子”、“大喊大叫或者互相击掌”。爱普尔曼说，人们对语法很有热情。

　　Christopher Telano, chief internal auditor at the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., has employees circulate their reports to co-workers to review for accuracy and grammar, he says. He coaches auditors to use action verbs such as 'verify' and 'confirm' and tells them to write below a 12th-grade reading level so it can be easily understood。

　　在纽约市健康与医疗总公司(New York City Health and Hospitals Corp。)，首席内部审计员克里斯托弗•泰拉诺(Christopher Telano)说，他会让员工们将自己的报告传阅给其他同事，以检查准确度和语法。他教审计员们使用“核对(verify)”和“证实(confirm)”等行为动词，并告诉他们以12年级以下阅读水平写东西，这样比较易懂。

　　Mr. Garner, the usage expert, requires all job applicants at his nine-employee firm -- including people who just want to pack boxes -- to pass spelling and grammar tests before he will hire them. And he requires employees to have at least two other people copy-edit and make corrections to every important email and letter that goes out。

　　在其拥有九名员工的公司，美语用法专家加纳要求所有应聘者──包括只想做包装盒子工作的人──在录用前必须通过拼写和语法测试。他还要求员工发出的每封重要邮件和信件至少有另外两个人校对并修改。

　　'Twenty-five years ago it was impossible to put your hands on something that hadn't been professionally copy-edited,' Mr. Garner says. 'Today, it is actually hard to put your hands on something that has been professionally copy-edited.'

　　加纳说，25年前，没有经过专业校对的东西都是不可能挑出错的，而现在，专业校对过的东西有时竟然还能挑出错。