Why do people purposely misspelled words

If human beings have any remaining competitive advantage over the machines, it is not our skill at crossing i's and dotting t's. It is our ability to write something that provokes a response - and not just because it contains a howler or a spelling mistake. Lucy Kellaway is an author and Financial Times columnist.

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Biblical errors. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Those creating these misspellings may not mention it, but there could be legal reasons. Many of these misspellings are for items that are likely to be trademarked. The sign lettered by children simply provides an excuse. The example often cited is Froot Loops. If the name was spelled correctly, then the product would have to contain real fruit.

By misspelling the word, they can use artificial ingredients instead. Maybe Genisys is a new type of Terminator, in which case it is not necessary a misspelling but effectively a brand — which as has been pointed out is often a purposeful misspelling for trademark purposes.

If the movie on the other hand goes all the way back in time to the start of the terminator timeline then yes, genesis might be correct. Mehper C. Palavuzlar Mehper C. Palavuzlar In this case it is written to more closely correspond to the pronunciation. So I rather view it as a simplified spelling than as deliberately wrong. If 'nite' appears in your dictionary, please burn it immediately.

I use it myself in informal writing. While I appreciate that more examples would be welcome, I'm rolling back the bold edit which was also flagged as too bold. Nite is still an informal way of spelling night even in the US. It also forms a major part of at least one answer. Show 17 more comments.

Active Oldest Votes. Based on the example you've given, I think the most clear answer is: Advertisement and Marketing. I remember reading in an Advertising textbook that the spelling choices in Nick at Nite were based on a desire for balance in the design of the logo: two four-letter words separated by "at", and the removal of the descender "g" to keep a clear visual line and give the two words a squared-off appearance: I suppose there's a similar mentality in removing the descender "g" in thru, tonite, lite, et al.

The Chicago Tribune published this in about misspellings in advertisements: "There's a lot of trickery involved in the way grammar is used in advertising," says Stephen Hahn-Griffiths, Chief Strategy Officer at Leo Burnett ad agency.

So, while there are terms like manipulated spelling , which advertising scholars have used for nearly a century, and there are any number of these somewhat facetious terms: Faux-urban misspelling: Using "z" in place of "s," "da" instead of "the," and "dogg" or "dawg" instead of "dog.

Improve this answer. The correct answer. In ad agencies and the like, this is sometimes just called "ad spelling". So, you might hear some typographers or whatever saying "So the logo is SuperNite.. Night, ad spelling or normal spelling? BTW I've noticed that Mehper's extraneous interests involve marketing: I'm betting this is almost certainly exactly what he means. It's worth noting that in certain countries - say France - marketers do this very specifically to avoid the rules that say a translation slug must be provided for English words used in printed ads.

You have a typo.. There's also legal trademark protection in using misspelled words. Someone named Nick who performs at night couldn't come along with his own show, "Nick at Nite" because Nickelodeon has the trademark. If they had "Nick at Night" then the second Nick could also do his nighttime show "at Night". Add a comment. Fattie I have never heard the word cacography before, but I now love it. This is just a made up term.

The wikipedia page in question is broadly marked for deletion, and will almost certainly be deleted soon. There are no, zero, real references for "sensational spelling" as a term. Joe I edited your comment to include the edit you had made to the question. I think it is a valid point, but should be a comment and not an edit. Please flag this comment for mod attention if you want to discuss it, or flag this as obsolete if you are OK with the change. It can also be a form of an eye dialect : The use of nonstandard spelling for speech to draw attention to an ironically standard pronunciation.

Mark Mark 4, 8 8 gold badges 36 36 silver badges 48 48 bronze badges. I don't think the OP's example is meant to suggest dialect or irony or vulgarity or any such judgment of the writer. It's merely an alternate, non-standard spelling. It is called allegro speech. I don't know if this has any connection to what you are asking, but it is an interesting topic.

I'd call it marketing. There are probably others as well. Show 1 more comment. Active Oldest Votes. Another good self-explanatory term is chatspeak defined in the Urban Dictioanry as Chatspeak, aka netspeak. As a general term I recommend heterography cf. Improve this answer. Though coinage of 'Kleenex' well pre-dates the existence of net chat. Add a comment. Gnawme Gnawme 39k 3 3 gold badges 67 67 silver badges bronze badges. How about : Cacography is deliberate comic misspelling, a type of humour similar to malapropism.