They're called "books". Try reading one sometime.

Yet another reason I try to avoid communicating with executives is that in written correspondence, they tend towards the "barely literate" side of things.

Take, for example, a series of e-mail messages sent to me yesterday from a VP in another department. Not only was he creative with the use of something I suppose I'll call "punctuation as narrative", but his message was full of     odd   spacing      and bad grammar. (As a VP, he is required by law to use the word "synergy". Did you know the plural of "synergy" is "synergy's"? Me neither. In his defense, if he had spelled it correctly, "synergies", it would have been a correct context for it.)

Right: "Since our two projects share some common objectives, there are certain synergies in our implementation plans."

Wrong: "I'll have a large synergies, hold the mayo, with a Diet Coke and a side of synergies."

I seriously wonder what these people do with their time. They make their living off of copious quantities of paperwork; you'd think they'd read some of it from time to time, or at the very least proofread once in a while. Far be it from me to attest that my spelling is perfect. In writing this paragraph, I typed "proffread one". But you know what? I caught it. And upon further revisions of this document, which I claim is as trivial as your standard inter-office memo, I caught and corrected a few other errors as well.

Somebody get me a necktie! I'm more literate than a vice-president! Whoo wee!