C-A-R-L-I-L-S-E

Hands up if you spotted something wrong with that.

Anyone?

Hopefully readers will have spotted the misspelling of the town's name - but apparently plenty of people from elsewhere wouldn't have.

Travelodge has revealed which UK destinations are misspelled most frequently by people searching their website - and Carlisle comes in at fifth.

One of the most common variations is 'Carlilse' - an error which probably has more to do with a lack of co-ordination between the brain and swift fingers on the keyboard than anything else.

But the other common misspelling - 'Carlyle' - should have pedants throwing their newspapers at the wall.

Perhaps people were looking for hotels in Carlyle, Illinois or the Montana ghost town of Carlyle (population: zero).

Perhaps people just really wanted to meet Robert Carlyle. Unlikely.

A spokesman from Travelodge said: "The reason for this could be speed of typing or it’s more likely to be that people are spelling a location as they think it’s pronounced.

"Some place names may be a preservation of an old spelling that made sense at the time the place was named but has little bearing on life today.

"The spellings could represent a pronunciation from any century from 1066 onward."

City mayor Colin Stothard said: "I think it's all a big confusion - if you head over the border to Scotland you see the sign with a 'y'.

"Maybe it's because we're north of Watford."

At least Carlisle residents can be consoled in the knowledge that other town names have been butchered too.

Topping the bill is Edinburgh - variously rendered as Edinboro, Edinburg and Edinbough. In second place is the capital, which is regularly misspelled as Loodon, Londan and, perhaps in a homage to the Cockney accent, Landan.

Completing the podium positions is Torquay, often searched Tourkie or Tourkey (narrowly avoiding 'Turkey', which could lead to a very costly error).

A common theme emerges as people grasp for the old spell-it-how-it-sounds rule - accordingly, Glazgo, Lesster and Looton all pop up on the list.

According to Travelodge, 20 per cent of searches for UK destinations on their website are spelled incorrectly.

In response to the problem the company has announced that it will improve its online search functions to better predict what people's misspelled entries were intended to mean.

So, just to avoid any doubt: C-A-R-L-I-S-L-E