spelling & grammar

At Chicago airport, we were directed to emigration & customs area. There was a big queue & it was interesting to see how all people moved in a queue. Me to was in a queue, to the rear end of it. All of a sudden a security officer asked us make a new queue in front of another set of counters. So I became 4th or 5th in the queue.

For those who are not aware of some immigration rules: I visited US with a B1 visa. It’s the visit visa. If you visit for company purpose on B1, you need to show an invitation letter from the company indicating the purpose of visit.

I handed over my passport (with visa stamped in it), invitation letter and other required documents. The officer greeted me, checked all documents and took my fingerprints (they do it for all immigration processes). All of a sudden the officer looked confused. Looked at me, looked in the passport for my photo, then again to visa. Anything wrong? Oh, its like my hands are wet & he might have had some problem in taking my fingerprints.

He called another officer & sent me to a room, where more officers were working with computers. He handed over my passport and other documents to another officer there. The new officer told me to be seated. I was wondering what was wrong. I noticed few rooms with "Interview Room" written on door? Oh God, are they going to interview me again? I was totally confused. They brought in more people to that room.

After about ten minutes, another man came in (looked like an Indian) but didn’t talk a word to me. I knew he was watching me. My confusion turned into curiosity. Again another officer came in and asked me to get my luggage. In the luggage area, I met the people from same flight. Some few people I met on board, talked to me regarding the delay in luggage.

I returned to the officer’s room & I knew they were watching me when I went to get by bag. Then all of a sudden the officer (I think the chief of officers in that room) came to me and said, "Oh man, I am surprised to know you are a bonafide visitor to the United States". What? I was more confused. He said, "You are admitted!"

He handed over my invitation letter with few words circled and one sentence underlined. He asked me "See the spelling mistakes & grammar mistakes! Do the guy who wrote this letter makes mistakes?" I said "occasionally". What happened is, the guy who wrote the letter did his schooling in Europe, knows Greek & German very well & now in United States. So when he had some words with British English/German spelling & letter basically in US English. The officers called that guy to make sure that it’s a genuine letter.

So you decide, Do spelling & grammar are important in US English?


Note: For this letter, some spell checkers say the spelling of "Bonafide" is wrong. But Google says its correct. Any case I am using it.

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