Typo negative: the best and worst of Grauniad mistakes over 200 years From ‘The Taming of the Screw’ to ‘irritable bowl syndrome’, the paper is fondly known for its slips Composite: Guardian Design/The Guardian Composite: Guardian Design/The Guardian Wed 12 May 2021 02.00 EDT “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.