It’s a simple fact: No one can write. I never thought I’d turn into Grammar Guy, but we’re living in a typing world—so you’d better be careful. Your first impression is no longer the slick “Hey how’s it going?” of your sexy speaking style. Now, in order for anyone to pay attention to you, you’ve got to learn how to use capitalization!

I feel better now that I’ve gotten that off my chest. This is not, however, a rant. Let me explain where I am coming from in some neatly-appointed paragraphs that have been burning a hole in my overburdened head.

For a million years most of us would get on the phone and do our magic. We made connections, dates, had a terrific time smooth-talking a customer on one end, a conquest on another. It was a fine time had by all. Then suddenly the world went in another direction: e-mail, IM, lots of online connecting. Suddenly, a lot of folks whom I’d respected for years started to look idiotic and unschooled to me.

This must be what happened to those actors with squeaky voices when talkies came around. Most retired fast, found a new line of work (manure carrier?), and they didn’t see it coming. Who wanted to hear those high-toned accents as they wooed the colorful woman of their dreams!

I’m surprised at the much younger generation. When I was a kid, I was all about moving up. But that meant I had to act impressively—and communicate that way too. Regular readers of this Report have heard me talk about the lack of care paid to proofing documents. I am sure it’s because most folks expect someone else will find the mistakes…and besides, what difference does it make if it’s perfect? To quote my father: Whatever happened to doing it right, right?

I get bushels of letters from people who want to “work in communications.” Folks get dumped into my You’re Kidding file when they demonstrate how little they care about the English language.

I recently relocated to New York City and I am interested to strengthen your team in providing high quality communication services to your clients.

Why bother hitting Send?

(And that person is not from Lithuania.)

Time for The Rules. I’ve been taking notice of a few things we can all do to be better communicators in this, the written word world.

Don’t depend on Spell Check. Just because it might correct you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know you keep making the same mistakes over again. Try to correct yourself and don’t depend solely on Microsoft do the heavy lifting (my Check says antidisestablishmentarianism is correct).

Like I started to say, once you make a boo-boo on the subject header, you’re dead to the reader. Who will then forward it to everyone with, “Check this!” Have you ever written a letter to someone only to have them return it corrected? Try me.

Don’t use words that are true crutches. Like “offers,” “work with,” “gives,” “allows,” “show,” and others that are passive verbs. Be active. It’s better for your health. America, exercise your right to explain yourself fully. Oh and as anyone who knows me will attest: don’t say “interested in.” PR people, make a note.

Be consistent. If your voice is one people will recognize, be that way. If your tone is casual or flippant, don’t change at all in the written word. Don’t suddenly become fake, formal or phony. If you’re all about stating your case with authority, then don’t try to be Jim Carrey cute. Be you, glorious you. If you try to be a character that isn’t you, chances are you will turn the other person off. These days typing is talking—as long as you’re the person we all know and love. Why fake it!

Once again for giggles: If you want to say something, then please do. (See “If you can use fewer words” below.)

When you are not sure what you mean, stop. Just don’t say another word. Scrap the mail, shut off the computer. Lo, many years ago, that was pulling paper out of the typewriter and crumbling it up. That was very dramatic. I’m selling old Smith Coronas if anyone needs to be that way.

Learn some simple rules. Fewer is used for the tangible; less is for the non-. Fewer words, less air. I hate the Bachman Pretzels bag that says “Less calories” and stopped eating them. Now I’m thinner! Less? Don’t use the word ‘myself’ in talking about you and others. And when you’re not sure if it’s ‘me’ or ‘I,’ do like they told you in Grade School: remove the other people in the sentence and try it without them! (Sigh.)

It’s “its” for possessive and “it’s” for it is. When speaking, either works. Writers forget about all of that in casually-strewn e-correspondence. Recipients, however, do not. And “there is” for singular and “there are” for plural. Wrong: There’s 100 people for me to correct today!

Learn what a salutation is. Dear Richard: and not Dear Richard,. Not Hi Richard, but rather Hi, Richard. It’s not that hard. Pick up the AP Style Book and never put it down.

If you can use fewer words do so. (See “Don’t rush.”) Get to the point and make friends. If you start to get fancy that’s when the language begins to fall apart.

Don’t rush. If you are writing to someone for the first time, try doing the mail first on a Word doc. Then re-read it a few dozen times.

Proofread. Then proof the damn thing again. Print double-spaced and read it off your monitor. Out loud. No one, absolutely nobody, can proof perfectly on a screen. If G-d wanted us to read on monitors, then we’d have them in front of our faces all the time. Wait a minute. We do.

Everyone I know says there isn’t enough time to be careful. Bullshit. Do it right the first time and feel good about usage. Fine, someone will have to wait to hear from you.

And finally, come on everyone. I beseech any lucky bugger who’s read this far to think about the magic words you’ll use.

What’s with the overuse of awful clichés? Don’t you want to sound meaningful? I now proffer words that make you look lazy and/or inadvertently laughable:

Words You Should Not Use Because They Are Meaningless, Vol. 1

…great, sounds good, meet-up, game changing, leveling any playing field, nation as a suffix, win-win, win-win-win, yeah right, your call is important to us, having a moment here, one-on-one, interface, dialogue, turnkey, leading and leading edge, critical mass, first mover (as if), rules changer, HD radio, bold, cursory, allegoric, plug, clever (as opposed to smart), any press is good press, kewl!/coolio?, my bad, cause & effect, eat good, metrosexual, Best of Breed (best of bleed I’m fine with), best practices, synergistic, mission critical, scalable, next generation, value add, seamless, e-tailing, core competencies, empower, reality TV, out of pocket, off the grid…

And one word more people, me included, use every day that means nothing: THING. Replace that in every sentence and you’ll automatically gain a better vocabulary.

I got to go now and rid myself of bad words. If you write me be careful. I’ll read yours twice.

Our CEO, Richard Laermer, is co-author of Punk Marketing, due from Harper Collins in January. His dream is that Americans will not “make speak” like Borat.