Can everything be ‘ed’?

One of the questions frequently wondered while evaluating responses is the typical technical habit of adding an ‘ed’ to all and sundry. Have we moved our paces so fast that everything drifts in the past tense tagging along an ‘ed’.

I saw this at my first go at reviewing IT proposals in 2002. The definite articles dangled everywhere even if they were not needed. They were like a bunch of MBA graduates who were about to burst through a select corridor, with prospective students holding on and hoping for the class to be dismissed for them to pounce on. A ‘the’ before everything ..I mean come on… For a grammar geek it’s one thing to be annoyed with the sequence, specialy with a sentence; and yet another for the definite article to dangle like an unwanted wart on the face of a response. The victorious respite for avoiding ‘the’ everywhere was to add an ‘ed’.. Phew! Yes, we do write English and as much as it still remains alien to several industries, it still needs to be articulated in the accurate manner. We managed to adopt words like ‘updated’, and allowed the frantic presence of the American ‘ze’ as against the British ‘se’ but adding an ‘ed’ to everything; we’re still missing the point.

Don’t get me wrong! It’s not that I chose to wield my grammar wand everywhere but when responding to proposals, a serpentine drift of sentences can be avoided. Keeping it simple would be one. Giving proposal editors some time to proof read can be another. And yes.. proof read negating the narcissist look of ‘how-in-the-world-are-you-going-to-change-that-with-language’ look, is too banal I should say. The proposal is a document that needs time not only to be edited but to be nurtured with the same passion that the sales guy would, while addressing his audience with his presentation. Most companies have several experts and experts to those experts (if there was anything like that… but trust me the species does exist!). And they have all the time in the world to check technicalities, marry it with quality assurances, assumptions and phenomenally technical observations. What they give little time to is the manner in which it is presented. I had a senior once in a former company who’d look at me editing and say, ‘You can do that dressing later, I need you to plug in this para and some more SOW’s!’

And then they blame the poor graphics guy for not helping to wrap up the proposal; physically and practically.. in time! It’s high time that proposal writers got their due for editing copious pages. To tell you the truth; we’re only helping you make your bookish, rote learnt technicalities look better. Don’t believe us?!… Give us some more time and we’ll prove it to you!