# No significant grammar or spelling errors

- **Pattern:** `ab-001732` (`marketing-content-quality.readability-quality.grammar-spelling-errors`)
- **Severity:** medium
- **Lifecycle:** active
- **Last modified:** 2026-04-18
- **Canonical URL:** https://auditbuffet.com/patterns/ab-001732
- **License:** CC-BY-4.0 — attribute to AuditBuffet Pattern Catalog (https://auditbuffet.com/patterns/ab-001732)

## Why it matters

Grammar and spelling errors on a marketing site signal lack of care — and in markets where visitors are evaluating professional services, SaaS tools, or anything with a business trust component, lack of care in the copy creates doubt about quality of the product itself. The mental model is unconscious but consistent: if they didn't proofread the sentence the visitor just read, what else didn't they check? AI-generated copy is particularly prone to subtle errors: subject-verb disagreement ("your team are"), incorrect apostrophe use ("it's" vs. "its"), and plausible-sounding misspellings ("Intergration") that pass a casual read but fail on close inspection.

## Severity rationale

Medium because grammar and spelling errors on key marketing pages — especially the hero — reduce perceived professionalism and create trust friction, particularly for business-to-business products where credibility is part of the evaluation.

## Remediation

Before evaluating, extract the literal text from your rendered page (not the source code — rendered text avoids JSX noise) and paste it into a grammar checker. Use Grammarly's free browser extension, LanguageTool's browser extension, or paste directly at languagetool.org.

The mandatory quoting step: copy the hero section and first feature description as they appear in the browser and read them word by word before flagging pass. Common errors to look for:
```
Subject-verb agreement:
  "Your team are going to love it"    → "Your team is going to love it"

Apostrophe errors:
  "It's features include..."           → "Its features include..."
  "The company began it's journey..."  → "The company began its journey..."

AI misspellings:
  "Intergration"   → "Integration"
  "Seamlesly"      → "Seamlessly"
  "Definitly"      → "Definitely"
```

For AI-built projects: run the generated copy through a grammar checker in a separate pass from generation — the same AI session that generated the copy is biased toward its own output being correct.

## Detection

- **ID:** `grammar-spelling-errors`
- **Severity:** `medium`
- **What to look for:** Count all relevant instances and enumerate each. Before evaluating, extract and quote the first 2-3 complete sentences from each of these sections: (1) the hero section (headline + sub-text), (2) the first feature description, and (3) the pricing page headline + first paragraph. This quoting step is mandatory — it ensures close reading rather than a cursory scan. Then evaluate each quoted passage for grammar errors (subject-verb disagreement, misplaced apostrophes, run-on sentences, sentence fragments that are not intentional stylistic choices) and spelling mistakes. Do not flag intentional stylistic fragments ("Fast. Reliable. Yours.") or British vs. American spelling differences.
- **Pass criteria:** No grammar or spelling errors found in the quoted passages or elsewhere on key marketing pages.
- **Fail criteria:** One or more grammar or spelling errors found in the marketing copy on key pages. Quote the specific error(s).
- **Skip (N/A) when:** The project has no visible marketing copy (API-only project or internal tool with no public-facing pages). Signal: no public routes with body copy.
- **Detail on fail:** Quote the specific errors. Example: `"On home page: 'Your team are going to love it' (subject-verb error) and 'Intergration with your existing tools' (spelling: 'Intergration')"` Keep quoted errors under 300 chars total.
- **Remediation:** Grammar and spelling errors on a marketing site signal lack of care. If your target customers include anyone evaluating trust or professionalism, these errors cost you.

  Run your marketing copy through a grammar checker (Grammarly free tier, LanguageTool, or Claude). Copy the text from your rendered page — not the code — into the checker. Fix what it flags.

  For AI-built projects: if you used the AI to generate copy, ask it to review the copy for grammar errors in a separate pass. AI-generated content can contain subtle agreement errors that aren't obvious at first read.

  Review the configuration in `src/` or `app/` directory for implementation patterns.

Taxons: content-integrity

HTML version: https://auditbuffet.com/patterns/ab-001732