San Seriff

San Serriffe is a fictional island nation created for April Fools'Day, 1977, by staff members of Britain's Guardian newspaper. Anelaborate description of the nation, using puns and plays on wordsrelating to typography (such as "sans serif"), was reported aslegitimate news, apparently fooling many readers who did notunderstand the joke and did not understand that there was a reasonthat the island was also known as Hoaxe. In more recent yearsknowledge of typography has spread through widespread use ofcomputers, and so the jokes are much more likely to be spotted.The first version of the hoax appeared in the British newspaper TheGuardian on April 1, 1977. A seven-page supplement was published inthe style of contemporary reviews of foreign countries, commemoratingthe tenth anniversary of the island's independence, complete withthemed advertisements from major companies. The island was reused forsimilar hoaxes in 1978, 1980 and 1999.San Serriffe was one of the most famous and successful hoaxes ofrecent decades; it has become part of the common cultural heritage ofliterary humour, and a secondary body of literature has been derivedfrom it. The remainder of this article draws from these many sources.