Of the four major supermarket chains in Britain, it is Waitrose who have taken a stand on correct grammar at the checkout. Most chains of supermarkets have a "fast lane" for people who have only a few purchases, and most stores around Britain have bold signs that state: "6 (or whatever number they have decided on) items or less." Waitrose is the gramatically correct exception with the sign - this one is in in their Peterborough store - "6 items or fewer." The rule about "less" and "fewer" is that the latter should apply to quantities that are easily identified as being made up of individual units. The mnemonic that I was taught was "Fewer than six bottles will cost less than five pounds." Bottles can only be subdivided as individual units, whereas pounds can be subdivided into pounds and pence. To many people this will sound pedantic, but others will smile when they see traditional English usage, and the same people probably cringe at incorrect grammar.

Liverpool has two locations for its renowned football teams, and the council has been very conscientious in the road signs around the city. The signs say "Football Stadia." When I was driving there earlier this year, I smiled. My Latin teacher would have been pleased, because the correct plural of stadium is stadia. But how many football supporters studied Latin, and wouldn't "Stadiums" be more readily understood by most motorists? If you're printing leaflets that advertise places to book a holiday, should you write "travel bureaus" or the more correct "travel bureaux?"

Purists would argue that something cannot be "more correct."
It's either correct or it isn't. To take another example,would you object to "my writing this..." - which is grammatically correct, while "me writing this" is wrong in this context? But gerunds - as Nigel Molesworth would certainly have claimed in Down with Skool and How to be Topp - are dead. And I choose him as the example because I suspect that less than 5% of you will have any idea about Nigel, or any of the other characters that kept me amused when I was in short trousers. All of which serves nicely to make my point.

Being right or being clever or witty won't serve the purpose. The objective is to get your message across, whether you are preparing a presentation, or a document, or a speech. It will serve no purpose if your audience go blank at the mention of Nigel Molesworth. Similarly your customer for a holiday might think "bureaux" is a misprint, while your motorist could take a wrong turning at "football stadia."

It's all about communication. Always. It's not what you write, it's what they read, and it's not what you say, it's what they hear.

But when all is said and done, I still admire Waitrose... more or less.

Sometimes we just don't get it. And nobody is worse at this than I am. I'm sure it's happened to you; someone says something and you totally miss the point. Or there's a big road sign (especially speed limits) and you drive happily by without noticing it. Or you're busy on a project and you simply don't hear someone who's calling to get your attention. The reason's simple enough, you have your own agenda and you're blind, or deaf to the unexpected. It works two ways. Sometimes you're so confident that you don't hear the bad news, and sometimes you're so anxious or pessimistic that you are always anticipating the worst scenario and can't come to terms with it when your luck changes. In "Mammoth Strategies," Tork and Grunt struggled to communicate the idea of a single community with their fellow tribes-folk because the people rejected the idea out of hand. It had never been something they'd considered, so they were incapable of coming to terms with it.

It happened to me last week. I had an email with some very exciting news, but I simply didn't see it until the third time I read the message. It was unexpected, and I certainly wasn't programmed to expect anything positive from that particular quarter. Perhaps it would have been easier to hear the message on the phone, or better still, see the expression on the face, and then I might have guessed what was coming, or at least been more receptive to that particular communication.

When you have something important to say, you have to choose how you're going to say it, the medium needs to be appropriate to the message. In the heydays of the 60's Marshall McLuhan's book first claimed that the "Medium is the Message" then, thanks to an error at the printers, the book was published with the title "The Medium is the Massage." Because, in reality it's both. If you put enough hype and energy behind a message you can whip up an audience to be enthusiastic about anything.... as television demonstrates with tedious frequency.

When you want to be sure your message reaches your audience, the more routes you use, the more likely you are to get through.