General

Take this with a grain of salt

Penguin Australia acknowledges costly one-word error

Some typos are worse than others. The Australian arm of Penguin books was forced to reprint 7,000 copies of Pasta Bible last week after a recipe called for “salt and freshly ground black people” – instead of pepper – to be added to the spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto. The exercise will cost Penguin $20,000, the head of publishing, Bob Sessions, said. At $3,300 a letter, it’s a pricey typo. Stock will not be recalled from bookshops because it would be “extremely hard” to do so, Sessions said. Copies remained on the shelves in city bookshops yesterday, selling for $20. Sessions could not understand why some readers had found the slip offensive. “We’re mortified that this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we don’t know,” he said.

Sydney Morning Herald

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