A few words in front

This morning I read a blog post by an author who said he'd been asked, some time ago, to write a 'forward' to a book. (I'm inclined to doubt it, but who knows.) Anyway, he did his bit, sent it in, forgot about it, and was then surprised when a copy of the book arrived complete with a 'Foreward' by him.

To which my ungrateful and unimpressed response was, make your fucking mind up, sunshine. If you're going to get it wrong, please get it wrong consistently.

Now I know Americans do things different, as they do in Norfolk, but surely there is no disagreement on this one, is there?

It's a foreword, folks. It's a little intro which goes before the body of the book.

And the spelling does not seem to be in dispute, as evidenced here, and here, and here, and here....

Yes, I know. Ought to get out more, wrong side of bed, grumpy old bugger, better things to do with his time...

But it's all about communication. About the smooth and unhindered transfer of facts and ideas from one human to another. And such smooth transfer is not aided if some of us have to break off from reading and go bang our heads against the nearest wall.