# A note to data entry people
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [March 28, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185 "2013-03-28T16:24:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/1 "2013-03-28T16:24:27Z")
Please learn how to spell.
Please do not use ambiguous abbreviations.
Plurals do not use apostrophe-s. (Side note: It’s _cemeteries_, not _cemetary’s_.)
Thank you.
---
### Author:  [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/2 "2013-03-28T16:46:57Z")
Ah, spelling, the bane of data entry!
I once worked as a government contractor with a bunch of ex-Navy guys. At one point they had me build an Access database (which was just about the apex of my computing skills) that would show the program status of all the ships in the Navy.
I set it up so they had to select the ship names – they couldn’t enter them manually. This annoyed my then-boss, who wanted to type in whatever abbreviation or nickname occurred to him. I pointed out that it’s abysmal database design to let users decide the identifiers each record will use, because users are not consistent, and the identifiers MUST be consistent. I further pointed out that while I’d known him, he himself had referred to the USS John F. Kennedy in the following ways:
USS John F. Kennedy
USS Kennedy
Kennedy
JFK
John Kennedy
Big John
CV-67
…and that’s just when he wasn’t making typos.
He wasn’t too happy with that; he continued to wish for a database into which he could type anything that occurred to him and the software would _magically know_ what he meant and what records to link to.
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/3 "2013-03-28T17:00:48Z")
I shudder to think how he would have looked for _Bon Homme Richard_ (CV-31) ‘Bone Home Richard’? ‘Bonnie Dick’ (the actual nickname)?
It’s a point of pride in our office to deliver clean data. (Also, clean data is less likely to be dropped on the other end; so it’s also a point of money.) I write program to clean up the data – but I need to start with a clean file, which means I have to put it into Excel and clean it up manually. Once I have a clean file, the programs can do the heavy lifting for subsequent files. The one I’m working on now has 45,000 records.
---
### Author:  [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/4 "2013-03-28T18:25:17Z")
I know how to spell. But when I’m taking dozens of claims a day, 5 days a week, 49 weeks a year, typos happen occasionally. Human error is an unavoidable factor in data entry, until machines are capable of replacing us of course.
---
### Author:  [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/5 "2013-03-28T18:40:20Z")
I don’t care about typos but stop cutting and pasting from crazy-ass Elbownean Email browsers. Nothing at my job is more annoying then having to track down what entry in my database is causing the 15Gig XML extract file to choke on some down stream system with the ever useful error “XML not well formed”, all because some control character was picked up too.
And before you bitch about me being too lazy to sanitize in the entry GUI,that piece it is off the shelf, and proprietarially unmodifiable.
---
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/6 "2013-03-28T19:04:14Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#):
>
> typos happen occasionally. Human error is an unavoidable factor in data entry
True. But I can tell by patterns which are typos and which are poor spelling skills, poor punctuation skills, and downright laziness. It’s a wonder some of these companies are able to send bills to their customers.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/7 "2013-03-28T19:19:37Z")
> [@Sailboat](#):
>
> He wasn’t too happy with that; he continued to wish for a database into which he could type anything that occurred to him and the software would _magically know_ what he meant and what records to link to.
Hell, I’d like to have one of those too please. And I want a pony, true love, an’ a bottomless box of ginger snaps.
I was a admin at an art institute, once upon a time. They had volunteers to help with data entry. It took me a while to figure out who some mailings would not sort properly . One of the nice old ladies who did the data entry still typed Os for 0s. I have sympathy for her because I know who hard it is to retrain your fingers, but lordy _what a mess_.
---
### Author:  [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/8 "2013-03-28T19:24:07Z")
When I was in high school, I lived on School Street. The high school was also on School Street. My report card came in the mail addressed as “Shcoll Street.” Always amused me.
---
### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/9 "2013-03-28T20:10:40Z")
I’d just like to add fathers’ should never give their sons’ the exact same name. If they do they should never use the same bank; especially while the son is still living at. Joint credit cards & bank accounts are right out of the question. And if you do all that and your really does bank manages to keep all the suffixes straight don’t go chewing out the customer service rep when the credit bureaus get you & him mixed up.
---
### Author:  [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/10 "2013-03-28T22:51:03Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#):
>
> I’d just like to add fathers’ should never give their sons’ the exact same name.
For the love of God, just add an s. Where do these apostrophes come from???
---
### Author:  [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2013, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/11 "2013-03-29T00:17:58Z")
> [@gigi](#):
>
> For the love of God, just add an s. Where do these apostrophes come from???
It’s a common enough phenomenon due to the way humans acquire language and grammar. Pretty sure this falls under the category of _overgeneralization_. A person finds out that English words end in 's sometimes, so they start adding extraneous apostrophes to many/most/all words with a final s. Some people never progress past the point of confusion wrt this rule–in my experience, they’re usually non-readers.
---
### Author:  [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/12 "2013-03-29T20:05:36Z")
As I grew up, the importance of correct spelling and proper grammar in relation to one’s future success in life was drilled into my head. Now, I am fully English/Spanish bilingual and a very good speller in both languages.
I once worked for a civil engineer who was a terrible speller and who violated rules of grammar to such an extent that at times his written orders and notes were incomprehensible. My job was to clean up his documents (memoranda, letters, reports, etc.) That is, correct the spelling, grammar, syntax, and so forth.
What I want explained to me by my former teachers: If correct spelling and proper grammar are so damned important and integral to one’s future success in life, why did I earn less than one-third of what the engineer earned?
---
### Author:  [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2013, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/13 "2013-03-29T20:20:27Z")
As a reader, spelling, grammar & syntax are important to me.
My ability to do it myself is marginal, Yay for spell check.
I have never been able to speed up my fingers enough or slow my mind enough to write well…
---
### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2013, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/14 "2013-03-29T20:35:35Z")
> [@Toucanna](#):
>
> What I want explained to me by my former teachers: If correct spelling and proper grammar are so damned important and integral to one’s future success in life, why did I earn less than one-third of what the engineer earned?
Because the engineer you worked with had specific domain knowledge that it was not only worth his salary, but also worth paying another person another 1/3rd of that salary to copyedit it in order to make it readable, thereby offering you employment. Of course, if he’d been a better writer, the employers could have offered him, say, 15% more than what he was earning and still saved money, so have having poor grammar and writing skills he was costing both his employeer and potentially himself.
As an engineer who oversees the work of other engineers and technical people whose primary job is to provide advisory work, I value communication skill–especially written–almost as much as their technical abilities. Engineers who cannot write clearly and correctly waste my time in having to correct and interpret their work, no matter how good the content of the is.
And making pernecious errors like putting apostrophes in pluralization, switching tense and perspective within a single paragraph, writing sentance fragments, putting large or many figure and tables in the middle of a block of text, et cetera can make a paper unreadable, or worse yet, convey an incorrect or even opposite message than intended. Doing work that provides recommendation or information to a customer is no good if the customer cannot make sense of it.
Stranger
---
### Author:  [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/15 "2013-03-29T22:50:44Z")
Part of my job requires that I use some data entered by someone else into a spreadsheet “database” which without fail, every day, is riddled with errors. I actually developed my own spreadsheet that I can copy and paste a section of theirs into and through some educated guessing highlights mistakes for me automatically.
They ALWAYS just say, “oh yeah looks like someone fat fingered that again” or something. FUCK. It’s annoying. JUST ENTER THE DATA CORRECTLY PLEASE. It’s not even typos! It’s numbers being wrong or missing data entirely or dates being wrong, etc.
---
### Author:  [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/16 "2013-03-30T02:09:48Z")
> [@gigi](#):
>
> For the love of God, just add an s. Where do these apostrophes come from???
I could pretend I was making some kind of ironic commentary on the first post, but we both know that isn’t true. :o
BTW [here’s](http://news.yahoo.com/popes-foot-wash-final-straw-traditionalists-004235548.html) an article on Pope Francis pissing off traditionalists. I especially enjoyed the part about efforts to revive the pre-Vatican II Latin Massachusetts.
---
### Author:  [@Toucanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toucanna)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/17 "2013-04-03T17:49:44Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Because the engineer you worked with had specific domain knowledge that it was not only worth his salary, but also worth paying another person another 1/3rd of that salary to copyedit it in order to make it readable, thereby offering you employment. {snip}
[/QUOTE]
LOL! Dude, I get that. I got that way back when I worked for him. What I’m annoyed about is my teachers and caregivers telling me good writing skills were _equally_ as important as math/science skills to the point where I wasted time, money and brain power learning something that, had I ignored it and focused on hard science skills, I would be now in the position of paying _someone else_ a fraction of _my_ salary to make _me_ look good on paper.
And yup, that’s a run-on sentence and ya know what? Up yours, English teachers. Grump grump grump…
---
### Author:  [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/18 "2013-04-03T18:46:20Z")
> [@Toucanna](#):
>
> What I’m annoyed about is my teachers and caregivers telling me good writing skills were _equally_ as important as math/science skills to the point where I wasted time, money and brain power learning something that, had I ignored it and focused on hard science skills, I would be now in the position of paying _someone else_ a fraction of _my_ salary to make _me_ look good on paper.
But it isn’t an either/or proposition. Developing a firm base in the language arts (grammar, logic, and rhetoric, classically known as the _trivium_) was once considered the prerquisite for advancing onto the practical arts (the classic _quadrivium_ of arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy, which would be extended to all natural and applied sciences today) and is crucial for being able to both learn and communicate accomplishments to others.
Of course, there is no reason that you cannot now strive to improve those math and science skills to improve your earning potential, though there are certainly many people with exceptional abilities in this area who nonetheless earn marginal salaries, and conversely those who cannot perform basic multiplication and yet still earn well over the mean for science and technical vocations. Despite your lamentations there are many people who make a good living in the fields of technical writing, copywriting, and general communications using little more than their ability to take the notions of others and draft them out in clear and succinct language. If your communications skills are better than the median (which is not much of a feat given the state of education today) then perhaps you need to put those skills to use polishing your c.v. and dazzling potential employers with your prose, or start a freelance writing practice.
Stranger
---
### Author:  [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/19 "2013-04-03T19:49:34Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#):
>
> I’d just like to add fathers’ should never give their sons’ the exact same name. If they do they should never use the same bank; especially while the son is still living at. Joint credit cards & bank accounts are right out of the question. And if you do all that and your really does bank manages to keep all the suffixes straight don’t go chewing out the customer service rep when the credit bureaus get you & him mixed up.
I would also like to request that people not use their middle names as their first name, too. Not if they ever want to be entered correctly in a database (or ever have their information found again).
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> \
> And making pernecious errors like putting apostrophes in pluralization\
Since we’re in the thread we’re in, “pernicious.” 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185/20 "2013-04-03T19:55:09Z")
> [@gigi](#):
>
> For the love of God, just add an s. Where do these apostrophes come from???
I have a button that says, “An apostrophe does not mean Warning: Oncoming S.”🙂
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-note-to-data-entry-people/654185.md?page=2)