Sensational Spelling

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

Remember the first time that you saw a sign for the chain of toy stores called Toys R Us?

Toys R Us, yeah.

Do you remember that, Grant?

The backward R.

Yeah, the backward R, the misspelling, the…

Colorful letters, yeah, the kids kind of printing.

Ungrammatical.

Do you remember what you felt?

I remember feeling, what’s wrong here?

I was a kid, I wanted to go in, and I wanted toys.

Oh, it attracted you.

Yes.

They had stomper trucks in there.

I wanted them so badly.

I’ve been thinking about this.

Sometimes it’s called sensational spelling or divergent spelling when companies specifically misspell something on purpose.

And I guess it’s to get your attention.

But I’m just thinking more and more about how it makes me feel.

And I think it makes me feel usually jarred and annoyed.

But some terms bother me more than others, like Blu-ray.

B-L-U hyphen Ray.

That bothers you because it’s missing the E.

It doesn’t bother me so much.

I feel like they know more than I do or something.

Things like Cheez Whiz, that bothers me.

How do they spell Cheez Whiz?

With a Z instead of S-E.

Oh, Cheez Whiz.

I never noticed that.

I don’t buy Cheez Whiz.

Oh, well, I don’t either, but I see it in the stores.

Sure, it’s got some in your bag.

Yeah.

She squirts it into her mouth in between the calls.

Eat it with my finger.

But the thing that really bothers me is I’ve decided that it’s things that look like they’re misspelled in order to look uneducated, you know, like country kitchen with two Ks.

That’s right.

So it’s the false, like, I’m just a down-home guy, just like you.

I’m a regional and you should come because we’re just alike.

Yeah.

Or here’s our little school.

It’s a preschool and it’s spelled with a K.

Right.

I don’t know.

Do you have?

I agree with that.

Yeah.

That’s the worst reason to misspell.

And yet, there are really good reasons to misspell a brand or a company name.

For example, if the name that you want is already taken, you misspell it and kind of just move forward and do the thing that you want to do.

Certainly, N-I-T-E used to bother me a lot instead of N-I-G-H-T.

It really bothered you?

Yeah, it did.

It bothered me when I was younger, kind of before I was really language dude, you know.

It bothered me because I was like, well, no, there’s a better spelling and I like it.

I just liked the G-H-T more.

It was an aesthetic thing for me.

So same thing with light then, light beer.

But you do stuff in your own emails that you send out casually to me and other people related to the show.

Oh, okay.

You will spell words like you spell thought, T-H-O-T.

I do.

But you find originality in that, right?

It’s just easier.

There are certain words.

Thought, should.

And cool, K-E-W-L.

But I love that one because it represents kule, which is the way some people in California say cool.

Right, a pronunciation.

Yeah.

So, I don’t know.

I’ve been thinking about that.

And I’m really curious to know which of those intentional misspellings, those sensational spellings, bother our listeners.

Or delight them.

Or delight them.

Yeah, because there are some spellings like, oh, yeah, that’s good.

That’s a keeper.

Exactly.

I remember being confused at first when Flickr, the name of Flickr, came out and they leave off the E in Flickr.

Yeah, where’s the E?

And I was like, oh, that’s a really logical solution to their problem, which is the Flickr domain with E-R was taken.

Yeah.

I loved it.

I didn’t realize that.

It was a solution to a problem like, oh.

It’s kind of like, okay, let’s drop the E and, you know, we’re online only.

It’s not that hard.

Right.

That’s better than pH instead of.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I like that.

Huh.

Yeah, well, I would be really interested to know what people think.

And I decided that Krispy Kreme gets a pass no matter what.

Just because of the product.

Just because it’s so good.

But you can let us know by calling us at 877-929-9673.

Send an email to words@waywordradio.org.

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