Blame Tutivillis, the Writers’ Demon

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

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

If you’ve ever sent a really important email, but then you found yourself tearing your hair out because it had an embarrassing misspelling right there in the first line… that’s me.

Yep. Been there, done that. Or maybe you sent a text with a typo that changed the whole meaning of what you were trying to say.

Well, cheer up. There’s no need to blame yourself anymore. You can always blame Tutty Villis.

Tutty Villis. Tutty Villis.

In medieval lore, Tutty Villis was a demon who served the devil by introducing errors into writing. And early on, Tutty Villis was a demon who rode around on sunbeams and hitched rides on raindrops, all the better to eavesdrop on priests and other church folk and collect all their idle words and their sloppy praying or words they skipped in the liturgy.

And he would hover around in the air when nuns were in more casual conversation and scoop up their idle gossip. And then he’d stuff all these things in a big sack and collect them for Judgment Day.

Wow.

I know. It’s pretty scary. Can you imagine? I’m in so much trouble.

And over time, as the centuries passed, he came to be thought of as this demon who introduced errors into medieval manuscripts, you know, that the monks were copying by hand. And eventually, printers picked up Tutty Villis as this kind of patron saint, or maybe patron demon, is a better term, who’s responsible for all those errors in typesetting.

So, Grant, I think it’s safe to say that Tutty Villis lives. Tutty Villis is alive and well in the digital era, and he’s in my computer.

Yeah, so I guess we should spell his name. Actually, it’s spelled a whole lot of different ways. I don’t know if these were misspellings or errors, but his name has taken lots of forms.

But the one that you can search for him with is T-U-T-I-V-I-L-L-U-S, Tutty Villis. Tutty Villis.

Oh, and he’s got villain right there in the name. It sounds kind of like Italian for all villain or complete villain.

Yeah, it’s not, but it could be. It’s not, but it could be.

Well, we’d love to hear about your famous typos, the ones that you can’t forget, the big mistakes that you made that you’ll never live down. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.

We’ll link to more information about Tidavellis and its spelling on our new website at waywordradio.org.