Satiric misspelling

A satiric misspelling is an intentional misspelling of a word, phrase or name for a rhetorical purpose. This is often done by replacing a letter with another letter (for example, k replacing c), or symbol (for example, $ replacing s, @ replacing a, or ¢ replacing c). Satiric misspelling is found particularly in informal writing on the Internet, but can also be found in some serious political writing that opposes the status quo.

K replacing c

Replacing the letter c with k in the first letter of a word came into use by the Ku Klux Klan during its early years in the mid-to-late 19th century. The concept is continued today within the group.

Barcelona squat and anarchist centre, labelled "OKUPA Y RESISTE"

In the 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, leftists, particularly the Yippies, sometimes used Amerika rather than America in referring to the United States.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} It is still used as a political statement today.^[6][7] It is likely that this was originally an allusion to the German spelling of the word, and intended to be suggestive of Nazism, a hypothesis that the Oxford English Dictionary supports.

In broader usage, the replacement of the letter c with k denotes general political skepticism about the topic at hand and is intended to discredit or debase the term in which the replacement occurs.^[8]

A similar usage in Italian, Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese is to write okupa rather than ocupa (often on a building or area occupied by squatters,^[9] referring to the name adopted by okupación activist groups), which is particularly remarkable because the letter "k" is rarely found in either Spanish, Portuguese or Italian words. It stems from Spanish anarchist and punk movements which used "k" to signal rebellion.^[10]

Replacing "c" with "k" was at the centre of a Monty Python joke from the Travel Agent sketch. Eric Idle has an affliction that makes him pronounce the letter C as a B, as in "bolour" instead of "colour." Michael Palin asks him if he can say the letter K? Idle replies that he can, and Palin suggests that he spell words with a K instead of C. Idle replies, "what, spell bolour with a K? Kolour. Oh! I never thought of that before! What a silly bunt!"^[11]

The video game franchise Mortal Kombat is another example of this trend.

KKK replacing c or k

A common satiric usage of the letters KKK is the spelling of America as Amerikkka, alluding to the Ku Klux Klan, drawing to a perceived notion of an underlying or inherent racism in American society. The earliest known usage of Amerikkka recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary is in 1970, in a journal called Black World. Presumably, this was an extrapolation from the then already widespread Amerika.

The spelling Amerikkka came into greater use after the 1990 release of the gangsta rap album AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted by Ice Cube, also used by rapper Spice 1 for his album AmeriKKKa's Nightmare and by shock rock band Undercover Slut for their album Amerikkka Macht Frei.

The letters KKK have been inserted into several other words and names, to indicate similar perceived racism, oppression or corruption. Examples include:

• Republikkkan (U.S. Republican Party)^[12]
• KKKapitalism (capitalism)^[13]
• KKKommunism (communism)^[14]
• David DuKKKe (David Duke), former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, candidate for United States Senate and Governor of Louisiana, now YouTube and web antisemitic conspiracy theorist^[15]

Currency signs

The dollar sign ($) can be inserted in the place of the letter S, the euro sign (€) in place of e, the yen (¥) sign in place of Y, the won (₩) sign in place of W, or the pound (£) sign in place of L, or the rupee sign (₹) in place of R to indicate plutocracy, greed, corruption, or the perceived immoral, unethical, or pathological accumulation of money. For example:

• App£e (for Apple Inc.); see also Criticism of Apple Inc..
• Autism $peaks (for Autism Speaks),^[16] often used on blogging sites such as Tumblr.^[17]
• Bu$h (for George W. Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, or any member of the Bush family)^[18][19][20]
• Congre$$ (for United States Congress).
• Co$ or $cientology (for the Church of Scientology)^[21]
• Di$ney and Di$neyland^[22] See Criticism of The Walt Disney Company and Disneyland#Tickets
• E$$o (for Esso): Used by the UK-based Stop Esso campaign encouraging people to boycott Esso, in protest against Esso's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol.^[23]
• Hill$ong (for Hillsong Church): Used by people against the Hillsong Church to state that they are only existent to take offerings to be used for workers' luxury rather than Christian-like charitable uses.^[24]
• "Green Chri$tma$", a song by Stan Freberg, satirizing Commercialization of Christmas
• Ke$ha: Pop music artist. She adopted the dollar sign in her name while struggling to get by as an ironic gesture.^[25]
• kla$$ (for class): Used to draw attention to the belief that American citizens are widely and unfairly ranked solely on terms of their material wealth^[8]
• Micro$oft, M$, M$FT (for Microsoft), as well as Micro$oft Windoze for Microsoft Windows;^[26] see also Criticism of Microsoft
• Orac£e (for Oracle Corporation)
• Ro£€x or ₹o£€x (for Rolex)
• Ru$$ia (for Russia)^[27]
• $ocialism or $ociali$m (for Socialism): Critics have pointed out that the idea of socialism has been exploited for profit, by politicians, corporations and artists, in particular as a criticism of Michael Moore.^[28][29]
• $ony (for Sony)
• Uncle $am (for Uncle Sam)^[30]
• United $tates, United $tate$, U$, U$A (for the United States).^[31]
• ₩a$hington (for Washington, D.C.).^[32]
• ₩indo₩$ (for Microsoft Windows)^[33]

O, A or other vowels

Typically names ending in O are the masculine equivalent of feminine names ending in A. But in other cases, there are different reasons for this. In other cases, o is in the middle of a word when the pronunciation of an ending "a" or hard-vowel U is in place of a hard or soft O sound.

• Californ-I/O, a nickname for the San Francisco Bay Area since places like San Jose have heavy computer industry in which I/O refers to the input/output mechanics of computers, and that California itself is also referred to as Californ-I-A with surf culture.
• Lots of names that end in "a" are simply feminine cognates of masculine names that end in "o", "e" or "us", which sometimes have Latin origins.

"@" replacing "A", "at", or "O"

Since at least 1980, people have used the "at sign" ("@") as a representation of the circled letter A. This has been extended to substituting it for the letter "A" as in the Crass fanzine Toxic Gr@fity^[34]

Word-in-word

Occasionally a word written in its orthodox spelling is altered with internal capital letters, hyphens, italics, or other devices so as to highlight a fortuitous pun. Some examples:

• After the controversial 2000 U.S. Presidential elections, the alleged improprieties of the election prompted the use of such titles as "pResident" and "(p)resident"^[35][36] for George W. Bush. The same effects were also used for Bill Clinton during and after Clinton's impeachment hearings. These devices were intended to suggest that the president was merely the resident of the White House rather than the legitimate president of the US, though all US presidents in general were a "r"esident of the United States in the beginning.
• Similarly, the controversial United States law, the USA PATRIOT Act, is sometimes called the "patRiot Act", "(pat)Riot Act", "PAT Riot Act", "PAT RIOT Act", or "You Sap At Riot Act"^[37][38] by its opponents.
• Feminist theologian Mary Daly has used a slash to make a point about patriarchy: "gyn/ecology", "stag/nation", "the/rapist".^[39]
• In French, where con is an insulting word meaning "moron", the word conservateur (conservative) has been written "con-servateur",^[40] "con… servateur",^[41] or "con(servateur)".^[42] The American English term neo-con, an abbreviation of neo-conservative, becomes a convenient pun when used in French.^[43] In English, the first syllable of conservative can be emphasized to suggest a con artist.^[44]
• The British political satire magazine Private Eye has a long-standing theme of insulting the law firm Carter-Ruck by replacing the R with an F to read Carter-Fuck. The law firm once requested that Private Eye cease spelling its name like that; the magazine then started spelling it "Farter-Fuck".^[45] Likewise, Private Eye often refers to The Guardian as The Grauniad,^[46] due to the newspaper's early reputation for typographical errors.^[47]
• Netizens often called Sen. Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. as "MandaramBONG" (Filipino word for plunderer) for denying allegations of pocketing pork barrel funds through the use of fake non-government organizations linked to pork scam mastermind Janet Lim Napoles.^[48] Later in 6 months, after his speech "Salamat, Kaibigan" delivered, many Twitter users tweeted a hashtag "#BongPanes" as a negative reaction of the speech, as well as his music within the same title.^[49][50]

Other significant respellings

Along the same lines, intentional misspellings can be used to promote a specific negative attribute, real or perceived, of a product or service. This is especially effective if the misspelling is done by replacing part of the word with another that has identical phonetic qualities.

Some place names are also spelled differently in order to emphasize some political view. For instance, Brasil (the Portuguese spelling of "Brazil"), is sometimes misconstrued as a typo for Brazil in English texts.^[51] Alternatively, the English spelling Brazil is used in Portuguese pieces of text as a way to denote Anti-Americanism or Anti-globalization sentiment.

Journalists may make a politicized editorial decision by choosing to differentially retain (or even create) misspellings, mispronunciations, ungrammaticisms, dialect variants, or interjections.

Backronyms

Plays on acronyms are also common, when the full name that the acronym in question stands for is spelled out but one of the words in that above full name is replaced by another word highlighting a controversial aspect of what said acronym is about. For example, Richard Stallman and other FSF executives often refer to DRM as 'digital restrictions management",^[52] a reference to the tendency for DRM to stifle the end user's ability to reshare music or write CDs more than a certain number of times. Likewise, the NSA is often referred to as the "National Surveillance Agency" ^{[53][54][55][56]} and sometimes "National Socialist Agency"^[57][58] by opponents of its PRISM program, who view it as dystopian encroachment on personal privacy.

See also

• Eye dialect
• Herstory
• Leet
• Play on words
• Pun
• Sensational spelling
• Womyn

References

External links

• On de spelling and use of various words by Mangwiro A. Sadiki-Yisrael