Jeg snakker om avisen The Guardians faste spalte for rettelser og dementier, som lenge har vært en favoritt blant engelske avislesere. Det er liten tvil om behovet: The Guardian er så kjent for sine mange faktafeil at satiremagasinet Private Eye konsekven har omtalte avisen som “Grauniad”. Men redaksjonen skal ha for at den løser oppgaven kjapt og kontant, og ikke sjelden med et selvironisk glimt i øyet:

A good starting point for a job in confectionery would be to spell the word correctly, which we did not in an article headed So you want to work in confectionary, page 21, Work, October 25.

We misspelled the word bellwether when we called M&S the bellweather of British retail. A bellwether is a sheep that leads the herd, usually wearing a bell (Recession watch, page 6, October 17).

Our obituary of Ted Briggs, the last survivor of the sinking of HMS Hood, said the warship had not fired a shot in anger before sailing to intercept the Bismarck. It had done so many times.

Some confusion arose in a review of a television drama about knife crime as a result of mishearing the term shanking, which means stabbing someone with a knife, as shagging.

Corfu, which we described as accessible only by charter flight, is served by scheduled flights as well as by ferries. The beach at Agni, which we said was accessible only by boat, can be reached via a steep but serviceable road.

The university of St Andrews is far from nestling in the Highlands, as we described it. It is on the east coast of Scotland in the lowland county of Fife.

Dagens ønske er begrunnet i norske avisers begredelige presisjonsnivå, eksemplifisert ved de mange feilene som avdekkes i Martin Ystenes’ Sprøytvarsler eller denne deprimerende opphopningen av feil og slurv. En slik oversikt ville ikke bare være nyttig for lesere og journalister, det kunne også bli riktig underholdende lesning, om ikke så erkebritisk understatement-preget som hos Grauniad. 🙂