2 Most Common Luxury Hotel Grammar Errors

2 Most Common Luxury Hotel Grammar Errors In July I wrote an article about phrasal verbs in response to a card in my hotel room that referred to an option to â€Å"workout† (one word – improper) instead of â€Å"work out† (2 words – proper) in the comfort of your own room. Since then I have discovered that the Hilton Garden Inn is not the only hotel to make this error.   While considering a possible stay at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore, I found this sentence: â€Å"For those who choose to workout in the privacy of their spacious guestroom, we offer YogaAwayTM.† The Hyatt’s advertising team made the exact same error as the Hilton’s.   Coincidence? Hotel Helter Skelter Here’s a strange thing:   Just for fun, I Googled â€Å"Hyatt workout† and discovered that the Hyatt is not consistent across its websites.   The Sarasota Hyatt Regency offers: â€Å"If you choose to work out in the privacy of your own hotel room or suite at Hyatt Regency Sarasota, we offer YogaAwayâ„ ¢.† Sarasota got it right! I wonder who is responsible for this mismatched spelling?   Why is Hyatt messaging not consistent between Baltimore and Sarasota?   I’ve always thought the draw of a hotel chain is the reassurance that you will get the same consistent service no matter where in the world you go.   The discrepancies on the Hyatt’s websites make me think perhaps their other amenities are not consistent either. More then [sic] words†¦ In the meantime, I have ventured on to yet another institution of hospitality:   a Marriott resort in Palm Desert, California.   Marriott evidently cares about energy conservation and therefore put out the following request: â€Å"In an effort to conserve water and energy, would you please consider using your towel more then once.† I don’t know about you, but my grammar checker even caught this one!   The correct statement would have been: â€Å"In an effort to conserve water and energy, would you please consider using your towel more than once.† There are some other grammatical issues with this sentence, but I’ll let them be for now.   Do you see the other issue here?   If you do, please share in the comments. I recall seeing a similar message in another hotel †¦ I’m not sure which one, but I believe the word â€Å"than† was properly used or I probably would have blogged about it. Wouldn’t it be nice if hotels could all get their grammar as straight and smooth as their bed sheets? Judging a book by its blunders? And by the way, even though this Marriott is a resort-level establishment, a level â€Å"6† which is pretty high in the Marriott pecking order, the round piece on the top of my bathroom sink drain was detached when I got to the room, and there was a stray peanut hiding under my very expensive flat screen TV.   Maybe grammar blunders really are an indication of deeper quality and performance issues? What do you think?   Have you found a hotel grammar blunder of late?   What would you suggest to these institutions that would keep them consistent and grammatically correct?   And how much do you judge a service provider based on the consistency and correctness of its message? Category:Grammar Writing TipsBy Brenda BernsteinDecember 12, 2011 5 Comments Stephanie Clark says: December 13, 2011 at 7:46 am Seems to me that this hotel is asking a question and forgot to reinforce that with the appropriate punctuation: a question mark! Your blog, Brenda, echoes my main bug-a-boo, which is that too many think they write well, and too few value good composition. Its true, too, as youve pointed out, that once weve discovered this inattention to detail and lack of sophistication in the writing, our brains begin to make leaps to other possible inconsistencies! Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: December 15, 2011 at 1:33 am Thanks Stephanie. What boggles my mind is how there can be such inconsistencies between institutions that are theoretically branding themselves as the same chain. How does this happen? Log in to Reply Betsy Neidel says: December 13, 2011 at 7:57 am Spelling errors drive me crazy and give me the feeling that quality is substandard, but I am also realizing that formal grammar and spelling seem to be less important THAN they were when I went through school. Log in to Reply Penelope J. says: December 13, 2011 at 4:16 pm Excellent catches, but sadly, examples such as these seem to have become more the norm than the exception. The current tidal wave of grammar and spelling errors in websites, blogs, articles, books, newscasts, advertisements, and public messages is an unfortunate indication of the deteriorating standards of literacy and education in this country. Log in to Reply The Essay Expert says: December 15, 2011 at 1:31 am Thanks for your catch Larry. Note however that I pointed out there were additional issues with the sentence. The punctuation is only one of them, and in actuality the question period at the end of the sentence is not incorrect. Heres the guideline from https://www.whitesmoke.com/question-mark-usage: Using question marks for indicating requests 1. Use a question mark with a mild command or polite request instead of a period that would make the request more demanding. Would you take these reports down to accounting? [Polite request – It would be nice if you do.] Would you take these reports down to accounting. [Directive order – Take these reports]] I believe it could be argued that the statement at hand is more directive than questioning. The opposite could of course also be argued. Do you see the other problem with the sentence? Log in to Reply

Causes of Mass Wasting and Landslides

Causes of Mass Wasting and Landslides Mass wasting, sometimes called mass movement, is the downward movement by gravity of rock, regolith (loose, weathered rock) and/or soil on the sloped top layers of the Earth’s surface. It is a significant part of the process of erosion because it moves material from high elevations to lower elevations. It can be triggered by natural events like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and flooding, but gravity is its driving force. Although gravity is the driving force of mass wasting, it is impacted mainly by the slope material’s strength and cohesiveness as well as the amount of friction acting on the material. If friction, cohesion, and strength (collectively known as the resisting forces) are high in a given area, mass wasting is less likely to occur because the gravitational force does not exceed the resisting force. The angle of repose also plays a role in whether a slope will fail or not. This is the maximum angle at which loose material becomes stable, usually 25Â °-40Â °, and is caused by a balance between gravity and the resisting force. If, for example, a slope is extremely steep and the gravitational force is greater than that of the resisting force, the angle of repose has not been met and the slope is likely to fail. The point at which mass movement does occur is called the shear-failure point. Types of Mass Wasting Once the force of gravity on a mass of rock or soil reaches the shear-failure point, it can fall, slide, flow or creep down a slope. These are the four types of mass wasting and are determined by the speed of the material’s movement downslope as well as the amount of moisture found in the material. Falls and Avalanches The first type of mass wasting is a rockfall or avalanche. A rockfall is a large amount of rock that falls independently from a slope or cliff and forms an irregular pile of rock, called a talus slope, at the base of the slope. Rockfalls are fast moving, dry types of mass movements. An avalanche, also called a debris avalanche, is a mass of falling rock, but also includes soil and other debris. Like a rockfall, an avalanche moves quickly but because of the presence of soil and debris, they are sometimes moister than a rockfall. Landslides Landslides are another type of mass wasting. They are sudden, fast movements of a cohesive mass of soil, rock or regolith. Landslides occur in two types- the first of which is a translational slide. These involve movement along a flat surface parallel to the angle of the slope in a stepped-liked pattern, with no rotation. The second type of landslide is called a rotational slide and is the movement of surface material along a concave surface. Both types of landslides can be moist, but they are not normally saturated with water. Flow Flows, like rockfalls and landslides, are fast moving types of mass wasting. They are different however because the material within them is normally saturated with moisture. Mudflows, for example, are a type of flow that can occur quickly after heavy precipitation saturates a surface. Earthflows are another type of flow that occur in this category, but unlike mudflows, they are not usually saturated with moisture and move somewhat slower. Creep The final and slowest moving type of mass wasting is called soil creep. These are gradual but persistent movements of dry surface soil. In this type of movement, soil particles are lifted and moved by cycles of moistness and dryness, temperature variations and grazing livestock. Freeze and thaw cycles in soil moisture also contribute to creep through frost heaving. When soil moisture freezes, it causes soil particles to expand out. When it melts though, the soil particles move back down vertically, causing the slope to become unstable. Mass Wasting and Permafrost In addition to falls, landslides, flows and creep, mass wasting processes also contribute to the erosion of landscapes in areas prone to permafrost. Because drainage is often poor in these areas, moisture collects in soil. During the winter, this moisture freezes, causing ground ice to develop. In the summer, the ground ice thaws and saturates the soil. Once saturated, the layer of soil then flows as a mass from higher elevations to lower elevations, through a mass wasting process called solifluction. Humans and Mass Wasting Although most mass wasting processes occur via natural phenomena like earthquakes, human activities like surface mining or the building of a highway or shopping malls can also contribute to mass wasting. Human-induced mass wasting is called scarification and can have the same impacts on a landscape as natural occurrences. Whether human-induced or natural though, mass wasting plays a significant role on the erosion landscapes all over the world and different mass wasting events have caused damage in cities as well. On March 27, 1964, for example, an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 9.2 near Anchorage, Alaska caused almost 100 mass wasting events like landslides and debris avalanches throughout the state that impacted cities as well as more remote, rural regions. Today, scientists use their knowledge of local geology and provide extensive monitoring of ground movement to better plan cities and aid in reducing the impacts of mass wasting in populated areas.