Originally posted on my old blog on October 3rd, 2016.

I live in a town called Heckmondwike, you have probably never heard of it. It is like a hipster town “ I live in Heckmondwike, and you probably haven’t heard of it yet.”

There are people that have lived here their entire lives who haven’t heard of it. It is only a small town (Population 16,986 in the 2011 census.) situated 9 miles away from Leeds in the Spen Valley. It has a rich industrial and agricultural past.

It has history dating back before Saxon times, (the Germanic tribe, not the heavy metal band from South Yorkshire) and originally famous for the manufacturing of blankets. Also, the man that wrote the music that became popular as the theme tune to the Archers came from here.

Why am I telling you this?

I have realised that this small town has a problem, one I suspect that it has in common with many other places. That problem is this, it does not exist as far as spell check dictionaries are concerned. This may seem frivolous, and it no doubt is, but you can only imagine the horror of seeing a notice from the local church/mosque/scouts/football/knitting group that has the spelling some version of the atrocities that I list below:

Heckmonwike

Hekmontwyke (Which I suspect was typed by an angry Viking with a sore cut on his index finger.)

Heckmowick

I won’t give money to any charity that cannot get their signs spelt correctly, I am not a barbarian. I have standards, they are exceedingly low, but I still have them.

Badly spelt signs irritate me at the best of times, don’t get me started on the whole “paninis” thing. Panini is already a plural in it’s native Italian, why not be all arrogantly colonial about it and thrust our own pluralisation on the end? That’ll learn Johnny Foreigner right? No, they probably don’t even care, but I do. People have mastered the plural of “cactus” being “cacti’ haven’t they?

Actually, after further research, it appears not. Forgive me for a moment whilst I weep for the death of civilisation.

The problems of misspelling Heckmondwike escalate massively if you include letters from people outside the area who seem to only have the most passing interest in getting anything right. Actually letters may explain where my issue with this sort of thing arose in the first place, thinking about it.

My surname is Ship, I accept that it is an unusual name, but it is not an unusual fucking word though is it? I have to spell it every time I give my name, often followed by me trying to lighten the mood by saying something like “As in boat.”

I die a little inside each time I have to do that like it is the first time that I have done it. The subtext being that the person that I am now talking to is the first idiot that I have spoken to who cannot comprehend my name.

Why do I mention this seething boil of hate and resentment? Only because I once received a letter from a company addressed to “Trevor Shit.”

I assumed as first that it was someone who was aware of my oeuvre, and thought that it was probably fair comment. I aim for mediocrity but sometimes fall short after all.

It turned out that it was a mistake, one that I am sure the woman that I spoke to at the company was as shocked to see as she was amused. I cannot blame her, when I worked in a call centre I was monumentally amused by all of the “R. Soles” there were on the system.

As an aside for a moment, if my surname was “De’ath” I would lose the apostrophe and train as a doctor. Anything else would be a waste of the hand that life has dealt you.

Right, back to my original point. It is time that spelling dictionaries had town names embedded into them. I know that you can add words like “Heckmondwike” to your dictionary, as I already have, but not everyone that gets their sweaty paws on a word processor is as well educated as what I am.

So by adding such a simple thing to spelling dictionaries you will help make the world a better place, for the people who make these posters, and are blissfully unaware of the pain that it causes to people who can actually read without moving their lips. Thus also helping to reduce my stress levels, which as we have already ascertained are dangerously high most of the time.

I have no intention of starting an online campaign, or an internet petition to address the issue of missing towns and villages in spelling dictionaries, as I am not an over-optimistic idiot. It would only be taken down due to forged signatures or misogyny in the comments anyway if current events are any indication.

No, I am going to do what every good British person should do in a situation like this, nothing. Well, nothing and drink a cup of tea. I urge you for all that is good and wonderful about our great nation that you do the same.

it will give you time to realise that that finely and witheringly ironic email that you were going to send may not be the best idea after all.

Perspective, that is what is sorely missing these days. Go pour yourself a long glass of perspective and calm down.