How do you spell your country's name?

Recently, I received an official invitation to the Prime Minister's Conference, an annual business event hosted by the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute. The IEICI folks are usually very careful about the wording of their invitations and often consult with us about the protocol of addressing foreign ministers and heads of government. But there in the email subject line was:

Invitation to the Isreali Prime Minister Business Conference

One subject line. Two errors.

Aside from the missing possessive, the error that was really upsetting was that the host country's name was spelled incorrectly.

Many people go to a great deal of effort in preparing material for print, but skimp when preparing things for email. Perhaps it has to do with the hard cash that one hands the printer as opposed to the sense one has that email is free -- even though it isn't.

So let me caution you. Email is not an excuse for sloppy proofreading. If you value the content of your email and if you value your reader, don't press Send until you proofread the whole item:

• subject line
• names of sender and all recipients
• the body of the message
• your own signature
• the names of any file attachments
  

Unfortunately, most spell and grammar checkers review only one of the 5 items in the list. That leaves a lot of room for error -- aside from the inaccuracy of automated spell and grammar checkers.

And I'm sure you've seen your own shocking examples.

So proofread before you publish, whether in hard copy or in electronic form.

How did you say you spelled your name?

If you're wondering why people aren't inviting you into their social or business networks on facebook or LinkedIn, it just may be because as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you're invisible.

The cure is simple. Check how your name is spelled on the network site.

No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I know you typed it in yourself when you set up the account. Yes, I'm sure you know how to spell your own name. Honestly, I'm not saying this to embarrass you. Just check. Please.

Why am I raising this issue once again? Because yesterday, I stumbled across two people I know on LinkedIn whose names were misspelled. Guess how many people were persistent enough to find them...

You're probably saying to yourself that I'm making this up. Honestly, I'm not. Go ahead and look up the name Aaaia on LinkedIn. That's not his name, but he's a real person and he really did misspell it.

It's really amazing how often people misspell their own name on the web or in email. Obviously, it's just a typo. No one does this deliberately. Unfortunately, this is one place where it can really hurt you.

Just a word to the wise...