“So, is grammar something adjusters need to pay attention to?But should they have to speak or write different? And, you know,grammar are something nobody pays attention to.”

Elementary school was once known as “grammar school,” where kidslearned the “three Rs” of reading, writing and arithmetic. It'sunclear what they are learning today, but grammar seems to be amongthe least of the subjects taught in the 21st century.

Did you catch the eight grammatical errors in that openingstatement? First, each sentence began with a conjunction: so, but,or and. There are also different verbs for singular or pluralsubjects.

We all need to pay attention

No, I didn't “know.” I hate to hear politicians and sportsfigures pepper whatever they say with “yah know.” I want to say,“NO, I don't know! Tell me.” The rule was “a preposition issomething you never end asentence with.” Grammar is something “to whichwe all need to pay attention.”

Why do we drop the last part of nouns or adverbs: “Two groupsare running for the Presidency, the Republican and the DemocratParty”? It's the “Democratic” party. Listen to televisionspeakers and half the time they leave the “ly” off the words theyuse. It's terrifically annoying!

CNN and PBS News often bring in professorial types to explaincomplicated current events. Many of them begin their answer to theanchor's question with “So, ….” When did beginning an explanationwith a conjunction become grammatically correct?

True, I've used conjunctions to start statements in thesecolumns, but it was intended to add emphasis, and I often use themin fiction. But in the hundreds of seminars and classes in which Ihave spoken, I cannot recall ever using “yah know.” If they alreadyknew, why would they be there?

Blame technology

When personal computers first became a fixture on adjusters'desks in the 1980s, many adjusters who had not taken typing in highschool resorted to the “hunt and peck” method. Additionally, thecomputer geeks warned that there were only so many bits and bytes,and to economize, new abbreviations were commonly used.

I recall picking up a report from an adjuster on a workers' compclaim that had a sentence reading “the em told the me to fu on theee.” What the heck? I asked someone who translated: “The employertold the medical examiner to follow up on the employee.” Oh. Well,it saved a few bits and bytes, but we ended up with the “Y2K”millennial problem anyway, where the year 2000 might be recorded as1900, and millions of people would become eligible for SocialSecurity at age 20! I recently took the “How to handle a Y2Kproblem” out of my textbooks — like so many earth-shakingevents, it never happened, although it cost millions of dollars toprevent.

Nearly everyone is texting, with a limited number of charactersallowed in the text. While that number has recently increased, theshortcuts and code words remain. For those of us who do not text,tweet, twitter or toot, it's an “OMG, what the heck is thissupposed to mean” world. The kids may understand it, but can onetweet with good grammar?

Cause of overpaid claims & litigation?

As an “Iconoclast,” I'm supposed to “break images,” making myrole that of a crabby, crotchety, cantankerous old curmudgeon,critical of what I see happening around me. As I'm out of theday-to-day claims reporting business I don't see many actualreports any more, but I hear about them — being submitted oncomputers on a multiple-choice fill-in-the-blanks basis — insteadof on a full-formal captioned report. I pity the claim executivesand defense attorneys who receive files of this sort and must sortthrough the computerized gobblety-gook in an attempt to figure outwhat the claims involve.

Maybe bad grammar is why there are so many over-paid claims orwhy so many claims end up in litigation. Maybe poor grammar is whynobody understands laws that Congress passes without Supreme Courtinterpretation. An insurance policy can mean different things byusing the word “or” or by using the word “and.” One is exclusive,the other inclusive. But yah know….

Ken Brownlee, CPCU, is a former adjuster and risk managerbased in Atlanta, Ga. He now authors and edits claims-adjustingtextbooks. Opinions expressed in this article are theauthor's own.

Related: Addressing poor claim writing skills