Re: Everyday [was: Style question: "war dial" vs. "wardial" vs. "war-dial"]

["Anameier, Christine A - Eagan, MN" <christine -dot- a -dot- anameier -at- usps -dot- gov>]

Peter Neilson wrote:
> I think that correct vocabulary and grammar are now seen by some as a
> disease. My resume (or CV if you prefer) is correct.  I've been told
by
> friends on the fringes of the Human Resources business that it's TOO
correct,
> and that this is why it'll never make it through HR to the hiring
managers.

Peter, did your friends explain what they meant by "TOO correct"? It's
hard to imagine HR people reading through your resume and thinking,
"This candidate might have been okay if only he'd thrown a dangling
modifier in there." 

I can think of only a few instances where I've been criticized for
proper grammar--in the most recent instance, a reviewer deeply disliked
my use of the phrase "for whom." It was grammatically correct, but
"that's not how people talk!" So she excised the offending phrase and
didn't notice when the rest of the sentence collapsed into grammatical
rubble. I recast the sentence to sidestep the whole issue and made a
mental note to avoid "whom" in future documents. The perceived
snootiness of it is enough to make that reviewer whip out the red pen,
which usually results in some collateral damage to the document. Not
worth it.  

In my experience, when non-writers comment on the "grammar" of a
document, often they're really talking about the style or tone. It's
hard to guess how this might relate to a resume, unless you're writing
it in full sentences and paragraphs instead of the sentence fragments
and bullet points that are considered "normal" for a resume. 

Christine
(on digest, so please cc me on replies)