Who cares if you don’t know grammar? And what’s tango got to do with it?

Yesterday I got an email headed “Call me Drayton – I have set time aside to help you” from someone called Ben Rogers, who I’ve never heard of.

Why should I call him Drayton when his name is Ben? Maybe he should call me Ben. I prefer Drayton, to be honest. I’m used to it. What do you think?

Really his grammar – to be exact his punctuation – let him down.

But I think he has set time aside to get money out of me. In fact I am pretty sure because of what else he said – and also the fact that he sells property.

This in particular had me worried: “It always inspires me when people realize they don’t know it all and are willing to reach out and ask for extra support…

This is a sign of true success when you can identify your weakness and get help when it’s available…”

I translated this to myself as “I really love dealing with people who haven’t a clue.”

Anyhow, there were some good sales tricks in the e-mail, including “drop me a reply e-mail with the best time of day to call you and we can set up a call.”

Then came more alarm bells: “This works out for me quite nicely as I have just finished a project and am just psyching myself up for a busy rest of 2012. So let’s get on the phone and help each other.”

This read to me like “I need some more cash and plan to help myself to some of yours.”

Maybe I am maligning Mr. Rogers. And maybe it doesn’t matter if you’re any good at grammar or not. Maybe it doesn’t even matter if you can write or not.

But I suspect it does.

Yet the funny thing is that I believe reading is if anything more important than writing. I never stop reading or writing – at least while I’m awake.

Yesterday I was reading a newsletter about the origins of tango. I am no Rudolf Valentino, though when much younger I actually danced on TV – but that’s another story.

The newsletter had actually been sent to my partner who is tango-manic. She smiled when she saw me reading it. I asked her why.

She said, “I am always astonished at how many different things you find interesting.”

David Ogilvy did a talk which I have lost about what makes a good copywriter. I can’t remember them all but they included insatiable curiosity and skill at the art of nit-picking.

The great Labour MP John Burns wrote in a 1902 pamphlet that “the curse of the working class is … the poverty of their desires”.

The curse of most people nowadays is the poverty of their reading.