From ‘The Taming of the Screw’ to ‘irritable bowl syndrome’, the paper is fondly known for its slips
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“If anyone wanted to construct a machine for the production of error, a newspaper would probably be it.” So wrote Ian Mayes, the Guardian’s first readers’ editor, in his debut column in that role in 1997.
His appointment marked the start of a daily corrections and clarifications column, a first for a UK newspaper, which has mined a rich seam of typos and other slips for which “the Grauniad” is fondly known.
