Wrong words. Misplaced words. Misspelled words. Incorrect punctuation. Faulty capitalization. Incomplete thoughts.

When it comes to ad copy gone wrong, this ad’s headline is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg — how many mistakes do you see? Photo courtesy of Flickr user Sylvar.

Proofreaders and editors are paid to find these issues and remedy them. Especially in advertising, using correct grammar can mean the life or death of a product or service.

Life or death? Yes, indeed. Think about it this way: Everyone makes mistakes, yes? Yes. You trust those who make fewer, perhaps less obvious — definitely less life-threatening — mistakes than those who make gaffe after embarrassing gaffe, yes? Yes. And it appears that those who make fewer mistakes seem to have their act together pretty well, or at least more so than their fumbling counterparts, yes? Yes.

Appearance means a lot, especially in the ad world.

If you put out for public consideration an advertisement that has improper grammar of some sort, it implies a few unsavory things:

• You don’t know any better (poor, unfortunate sod).
• You are sloppy with your work (if you are careless with advertising your wares or service, you very well may be careless with your wares and service, as well).
• You don’t have a strong support system or staff (surely someone would have brought the ad goof to your attention before it was too late).
• You don’t have your act together (you must be shabby at time management; otherwise, you would have found the time to read your ad copy and find the mistake).

Perhaps none of the above points are correct; perhaps you’re the most conscientious seller of your particular product or service in the whole, wide world. Perhaps a lot of people won’t even notice the problem — but perhaps a lot of people will. And your ad doesn’t show your persnickety attention to detail. Your ad shows a mistake, and the potential damage to your reputation is out there for the whole, wide world to see.

If you’re lucky, yours is a digital mistake that can quickly be fixed, with hopefully minimal negative repercussions. If you’ve a printed mistake on your hands, an ad reprint is about all you can do to fix the grammar gaffe — assuming you find it yourself or someone takes pity on you and points it out as a friendly gesture.

In advertising and marketing, companies and individuals alike rush through ads, direct mailers and brochures in order to meet a deadline. They either skip the proofreading completely or they trust that someone else will catch any unfavorable copy. Or perhaps they proof the early versions of copy and forget to have it looked at right before it heads to print. That is the exact time when many mistakes occur and when proofreading, perhaps, counts the most.

One set of eyes is OK in editing but, really, two — or more — are much, much better. And if you’re trusting writers to proof their own work, you’re in for disappointment, as most writers are not the best proofreaders around. Writers, too, have difficulty proofing what they’ve written because they expect to see it correctly — as it is in their heads. And even the most capable proofreaders are, believe it or not, human. Thus, they make mistakes. It’s tough to be 100 percent right 100 percent of the time, yes? Yes.

Checks and balances, friends. That’s what it takes to get solid, grammatically correct (and understandable) copy out there for the public eye.