Recently I came across an article (read it here) which claimed to pinpoint ‘the most illiterate areas of Britain’. The proof of this claim lay in photographs of publicly displayed signs such as ‘Lorrys turning’, ‘Dictionries’ and ‘Cash Only – sorry for incontinence’ (which presumably was an error, and not just someone being very honest).

Amongst these ‘illiterate hotspots‘ are Swansea (a place fairly close to my home town – extreme spelling mistakes here wouldn’t surprise me, especially on a Saturday night), Walthamstow, and Norwich, who seem to have a penchant for superfluous apostrophes.

The article caught my eye because these are the kind of things that drive me, someone who has trained herself to wage war against these errors, mad. ‘Please bare with us’? ‘full Engish brakfst’ (I really hope whoever wrote this one wasn’t a first-language English speaker)?

Evil typos, you will not make it into the pages of A&B books. (I know I’m asking for trouble now, and will receive cheeky letters pinpointing any errors should they somehow, magically, slip through…)

Sara Magness, Editorial Administrator