Only since leaving university and working in PR have I become one of those annoying individuals that finds typos wherever I go: menus, books, magazines, posters, newspapers - the list is endless. Nothing seems to be free of spelling mistakes these days. But newspapers? Surely they should know better?

I can barely read our local newspaper without finding typos in the first few moments of sitting down to read. And it really gets my goat. I find typos really distracting - once I discover one of the little critters, I can no longer concentrate on what I’m reading - all I do is wait for the next blunder to pop out and smack me in the face.

My annoying habit is probably down to the fact that I proof-read, on average, at least one piece of copy per day. We’re sticklers for spelling and grammar here in the Bristol office, and have a thorough proof-reading system that each piece of copy has to pass through before it leaves our inbox.

Now, you would think that newspapers, with all their highly trained writers and copy editors, wouldn’t let any typos or spelling mistakes slip through the net. After all, in my humble opinion, typos and spelling mistakes dampen a newspaper’s credibility, and makes the journalist writing the article look unprofessional, not to mention the bad example these mistakes are setting to readers. But, it’s not just the local rags that are littered with embarrassing typos, no, the national papers are full of them too. See a couple of absolute howlers here. You’d think that someone would notice ‘Lard Thatcher’!

Phew, after that rant, you could argue that I’m just being pedantic. If we want up-to-date news delivered to us every day, should we just learn to accept typos and spelling mistakes? I hope not.

Carly Rudrum