Charles Duncombe, an Internet entrepreneur based in the United Kingdom, recently told BBC News that websites could be losing millions in online sales because of poor spelling and grammar. Internet users wary of scams are reluctant to make purchases on websites riddled with errors.

“(Duncombe) measured the revenue per visitor to the tightsplease.co.uk website and found that the revenue was twice as high after an error was corrected,” reported BBC News in July 2011.

“If you project this across the whole of Internet retail, then millions of pounds’ worth of business is probably being lost each week due to simple spelling mistakes,” says Duncombe, director of the Just Say Please group.

These costly typos affect not only online sales, but also more sizable transactions. The placement of a single commain a contract between Canadian telephone company Bell Aliant and Rogers Communications allowed Bell Aliant to terminate the agreement early. The termination meant the loss of $2 million for Rogers Communications. Despite Rogers Communications’ arguments about the intent of the contract, Canada’s telecommunications regulator cited rules of punctuation when ruling in Bell Aliant’s favor in 2006. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on which company you favor, the decision was overturned the following year on the grounds that the French version of the contract did not contain the same alleged error.

See: Deseret News