h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Beware! Rampant hobby-horses on the loose...

Proof-reading aloud is the best... but it doesn't work in an open office. [Nor does voice control of computers.]

You can't proof-read on screen any document longer than two pages (if that). When you think it's okay, print it out and guaranteed you will find all the odd little things you missed on screen. Don't ask me why - it just is so. Perhaps some psychologist has an answer.

I wouldn't like to count the number of times I've pulled BBC News Online up about not even spell-checking web pages before they're put up. In Lewis Hamilton's first F1 year I found one piece in which America was spelled wrong twice.

As a Brit abroad, I have to weep inside when I tell my Jordanian colleague that his English (which he freely admits is better in the morning than after lunch) is streets ahead of that of a senior engineer with a well-known British consulting house.

And please don't pick up on my spelling unless it really is wrong: I've spent the last 20-odd years writing American English because that's what my employers have expected.

That's another thing: English has such weird spelling because it's the most bastardized language on Earth. A compromise mixture of two invaders' languages from the beginning, it has expanded as roving Brits have acquired convenient words from other languages, rather than bother to concoct some unwieldy "true English" equivalent expression, as was the habit of the Academie Française.

Admittedly spell-checkers won't pick up a "right" word in the wrong context. A grammar checker ought to - but in my experience they don't like any sentence longer than "The cat sat on the mat", so are a waste of time.

And finally:

The paperless office is an unattainable figment of many IT gurus' imaginations. However, the less-paper office is easily achievable.

If you want to save the rain forests, ban photocopiers and Windows - they both cause more paper waste than anyone would ever believe!