San Serriffe
San Serriffe is a fictional island nation created for April Fools' Day, 1977, by Britain's Guardian newspaper. An elaborate description of the nation, using puns and plays on words relating to typography (such as "sans serif"), was reported as legitimate news, apparently fooling many readers. In more recent years knowledge of typography has spread through widespread use of computers, and so the jokes are much more likely to be spotted.
The hoax appeared in the The Guardian on April 1, 1977. A seven-page supplement was published in the style of contemporary reviews of foreign countries, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the island's independence, complete with themed advertisements from major companies. The island was reused for similar hoaxes in 1978, 1980 and 1999. On April Fools' Day 2009 the geography, history and culture of San Serriffe featured heavily in the paper's cryptic crossword.
The original idea was to place it in the Atlantic Ocean near Tenerife, but due to the ground collision of two Boeing 747s there a few days before publication it was moved to the Indian Ocean, near the Seychelles Islands.
San Serriffe was one of the most famous and successful hoaxes of recent decades; it has become part of the common cultural heritage of literary humour, and a secondary body of literature has been derived from it.
Donald Knuth presents cheques for small denominations to readers who find errors in his textbooks, but due to problems with fraud, as of 2008 they have been drawn on the Bank of San Serriffe.
References
- Notes
- Special Report: San Serriffe. The Guardian, 1 April, 1977 (7pp)
- Visit San Serriffe, The Guardian, 1 April, 1978
- Bachaus, Theodore (pseudonym of Henry Morris) (1978). The World's Worst Marbled Papers: Being a collection of ten contemporary San Serriffean marbled papers.... Port Clarendon, San Serriffe: San Serriffe Publishing Co. (but actually Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press).
- Bachaus, Theodore (pseudonym of Henry Morris) (1980). The Private Presses of San Serriffe. Port Clarendon, San Serriffe: San Serriffe Publishing Company (but actually Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press).
- Bachaus, Theodore (pseudonym of Henry Morris) (2001). The Booksellers of San Serriffe. Port Clarendon, San Serriffe: San Serriffe Publishing Company (but actually Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press).
See also
External links
- The Bank of San Serriffe - Donald Knuth's fictitious bank.
- Foolish things, David McKie, The Guardian, 1 April, 2006 explaining how the original hoax came about and the impact it caused
- Some rough guides to San Seriffe, The Guardian, 5 April, 1999
- How young Tony Blair tuned into a new type of politics, The Guardian, 2 April, 1999
- Return to San Serriffe, Berlin Sans, The Guardian, 1 April, 1999
- The leader's rise to power in San Serriffe, Mark Arnold-Forster, The Guardian, 1 April, 1977
- Spiking the cultural roots, Tim Radford, The Guardian, 1 April, 1977
- Vorlage:Wikitravel - 2007 April Fools Project.
- Museum of Hoaxes the history of the hoax
- San Serriffe history with coin image