Writing rules – strict or flexible?

I have been writing and editing texts intended for the general public for well over 30 years. When I started writing contributions for radio, it was taken for granted that my text would be reviewed by a proofreader before being read by the radio announcer. And indeed, there was quite a bit of work to be done on it. Shortly after I began writing for print media, the process was the same. I prepared the article to the best of my ability and then reviewed the proofreader’s corrections in the printed version, so that I could avoid them in the future. When I worked for one of the many magazines for a longer period of time, the proofreader and I agreed that she would point out my most frequent grammatical mistakes, while I began compiling a list of them myself, as a reminder taped to the edge of my monitor. Soon, I no longer needed it. It mattered to me that the content I wanted to convey was written in beautiful, easy-to-read Slovenian, without major errors.

When I first entered the agency world, I was faced with entirely new challenges. How do you write down an English term that does not (yet) exist in Slovenian?
How, in the fast-paced environment dictated by agency work, do you ensure that a text is error-free when there is no longer a second pair of trained eyes reviewing it after you?

All of a sudden, colleagues started turning to me with questions like: Could you read this and fix the mistakes? At first, I made excuses, saying I did not have the appropriate formal education to give such advice. Then I realized that my language skills, compared to the incredible surge of content being produced across various channels by all kinds of authors, were well above average. And I also realized that correct answers are, in most cases, not actually that difficult to find.

Today, a great many people are involved in writing content for the public. Articles for news portals have long since ceased to be written only by journalists, and on social media everyone has the opportunity to publish their own thoughts. Even among writers and editors working in agencies, it would be difficult to find a common denominator, as our personal stories are very diverse. But would it be right to expect more from us than just a basic level of knowledge of the Slovenian language, its structure, and its rules?

A brief look at job advertisements for (online) editors and copywriters reveals that mastery of the basics of standard Slovenian and grammar is far from being a prerequisite for this kind of work. Does this mean that excellent command of the language is taken for granted—or that it is perhaps not all that important?

Somewhere I read that an adult can learn correct comma placement in Slovenian in less than two hours! So why don’t those who write on a daily basis do so? Today, there is an abundance of free advice online for resolving various language dilemmas—just a few clicks are enough to clear up most uncertainties. Designers and other creatives have taught me that sometimes a capital letter, a period, or a comma has to be sacrificed for the sake of visual appearance or clarity of the message. Intentional rule-breaking by creatives is, of course, welcome—but a critical eye can quickly tell whether what lies behind it is a deliberate choice or simply a lack of knowledge.

You must first master a language and grow to love it before you can truly enjoy the possibilities it offers. Or, put differently: you have to know the rules before you can break them.

Those of us who express our own (or our clients’) thoughts through the written word—even when our name and surname are not attached to them—all too often forget how many inboxes the newsletters we wrote end up in, and how many people see our Facebook ads. Perhaps intentionally.

What does a slogan that contains grammatical errors say about the company behind it? I dare say: nothing good. Can a client justifiably expect that the content entrusted to an agency will be delivered without mistakes? The answer is not a simple one. I do not know of any agency that employs an in-house proofreader, but I am convinced that every agency can include one in a project if the client is willing to pay for that work. In my opinion, clients working with reputable agencies can expect longer texts to be prepared correctly, though not necessarily flawlessly in terms of orthography. When it comes to shorter advertising copy and slogans, however, it should still be taken for granted that the agency will carry out an additional check of linguistic accuracy.

Anyone who creates content intended for the general public must be aware of the responsibility that comes with this work. Linguistically incorrect messages that accompany us on a daily basis slowly but persistently reshape our language culture and impoverish our language.

Of course, we cannot expect Slovenian language not to change—but it is both respectful and responsible to treat it with care and to preserve its distinctive features.

P.S. The author regularly conducts short internal Slovenian language workshops with practical tips that her colleagues can apply when writing business messages, correspondence, and other types of content. She also shares her experience and tricks with interested clients, as she is convinced that it is never too late to learn. Or, in the words of Slovenian band Martin Krpan: 'Še je čas, da izvem, kaj je prav in kaj ne smem' (There is still time to learn what is right and what I must not do) - a lyric that, ironically, contains a grammatical error (for poetic effect), using the pronoun 'kaj' instead of the grammatically correct genitive 'česa' (Še je čas, da izvem, kaj je prav in kaj česa ne smem).