The history of the lowly typographical error is inexorably linked to the history of humankind. No other species is known to make typos; although hippopotami are known to make hippos. A typo must involve type. Without type, there cannot be a typo. Pictures cannot have errors; they could just be bad pictures. The typo was born with the invention of typographic communication.

The ancient Koreans—not the Chinese—developed the process of block printing. It is said that a queen was near death and the high priests ordered the writing of a prayer in great number on small sheets of rice paper, probably printed with soy ink—the first edible printing. Technology came to the rescue and reproduced thousands of them—the first printed correspondence with a deity. The queen died anyway. The Koreans were renowned for the quality of their work. There were even manuals for novices and journeymen. For instance, if a novice made one typo they lost a finger; the second typo caused the loss of a hand. This ex­plains their reputation for quality…and the difficulty in recruiting new printers.

No one know if the Phonecians had typos. They invented the alphabet and someone else, probably the Greeks, invented spelling. So Phonecian kids had it really easy in school.