Satiric misspelling

Names and words sometimes are intentionally and satirically misspelled 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). This 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 1800s. The concept is continued today within the ranks of the Klan. They call themselves "konservative KKK."

Barcelona squat and anarchist center, labeled "OKUPA Y RESISTE"

In the 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, leftists sometimes used Amerika rather than "America" in referring to the United States. It is still used as a political statement today. It is likely that this was originally an allusion to the German spelling of America, and intended to be suggestive of Nazism, a hypothesis that the Oxford English Dictionary supports. It may additionally have been an allusion to the title of Franz Kafka's 1927 novel Amerika.

In the 1987 TV miniseries Amerika, it denoted a Soviet-conquered United States of America.

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. [9] Detractors sometimes spell former president Bill Clinton's name as "Klinton" or "Klintoon".

A similar usage in Spanish (and in Italian and Portuguese too) is to write okupa rather than "ocupa" (often on a building or area occupied by squatters [10], referring to the name adopted by okupación activist groups), which is particularly remarkable because the letter "k" is found in neither Spanish nor Italian nor Portuguese words. It stems from Spanish anarchist and punk movements which used "k" to signal rebellion .

The letter "C" is also commonly changed to a "K" in a non-pejorative way in the KDE Desktop Environment, a component of many Linux distributions.

"KKK" replacing "C" or "K"

The most common usage of the letters "kkk" in politically satiric misspelling is the spelling of "America" as Amerikkka. A reference to the Ku Klux Klan, this is often done to indicate the belief that the United States or American society is fundamentally racist. The earliest known usage of "Amerikkka" recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) 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.

The San Francisco Bay View regularly spells America as "Amerikkka".

The letters "KKK" have been inserted into many other words, to indicate similar perceived racism, oppression or corruption. Common satiric spellings include:

• Amerikkka (United States): see above for OED citation.
• Ashkkkroft (John Ashcroft) [11] Sometimes also spelt Asskkkroft [12]
• Bukkkanan (Pat Buchanan) [13]
• Demokkkrat (United States Democratic Party) [14]
• KKKanada (Canada) [15], [16]
• Kkkapitalism (Capitalism) [17]
• KKKlinton (Bill Clinton [18] and/or Hillary Clinton [19])
• Republikkkan (U.S. Republican Party) [20]
• South Afrikkka & South Afrikkkan : due to Apartheid
• Yankkkee (Yankee) [21]
• KKKramer (Michael Richards, who played Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld, had a racist incident at the Laugh Factory, in which the media dubbed KKKramer.)

"$" replacing "S"; "€" replacing "E", "£" replacing "L"

The dollar sign can be inserted in the place of the letter "S" to indicate plutocracy, greed, corruption, or the perceived immoral or unethical accumulation of money. For example:

• Appl€ (Apple_Inc.)
• Bu$h (George W. Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, or any member of the Bush family) [22][23], [24]
• ca$h (cash)
• Comca$t (Comcast)
• Com$haft(Comcast) See Micro$haft below.
• E$$o (Esso or Exxon Mobil): used by the UK-based Stop Esso campaign encouraging people to boycott Esso, in protest against Esso's opposition to the Kyoto Protocol
• IR$, Internal Revenue $ervice (Internal Revenue Service)
• I$rael (Israel)
• Micro$oft, M$, Micro$haft (Microsoft): used to emphasize the allegation that Microsoft has business practices that focus on making money rather than producing good products. Microsoft was convicted under United States anti-trust law of taking unfair advantage of its monopoly position. Also criticized for taking advantage of loyal customers and upgrading products annually for an expensive price, thus "shafting" the people who bought last year's products[25] See also: Criticism of Microsoft.
• taxe$ (taxes)
• T$R (TSR): A common epithet on the Internet used by fans of the company's products to refer to their habit of threatening to sue their fans over fan web sites (the company has since gone bankrupt and was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, purchased in turn by Hasbro).
• Co$, or $cientology (Church of Scientology): used by opponents to the Church of Scientology to imply that the religion is founded solely on financial rather than spiritual motives. [26]
• Ru$$ia (Russia) : used in reference to corruption rampant in the country. [27]
• Uncle $am (Uncle Sam) [28]
• United $tates, United $tate$, U$, U$A (United States) [29]
• U$aisamonster (USAISAMONSTER)
• U$C (University of Southern California): used by rival schools to poke at USC's image as being populated by rich students from entertainment industry families.
• Wa$hington (Washington) [30]
• kla$$ (class) used to draw attention to the belief that American citizens are widely and unfairly ranked solely on terms of their material wealth [31]
• $ky Used by critics of the British satellite television broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting
• $GA€ Used by Spaniard internauts to refer SGAE, a Spanish performance rights organisation.
• $ony Used by critics of Sony
• Lar$ Used by critics of Lars Ulrich after he and Metallica sued and ultimately closed down Napster.
• Uni$y$

A recent related usage is replacing "E" with the Euro sign ("€") as in €$$O, €urope [32], and €C (used by critics of the European Commission who accuse it of involvement in bribery and corruption). Another related usage is replacing "Y" with a Yen sign (¥).

"@" replacing "A" and/or "O"

Since at least 1980, Anarchists have used the "at sign" ("@") as a readily handy character to represent the circled letter A. This has been extended to substituting it for the letter "A" as in the Crass fanzine "Toxic Gr@fity" [33]

This may have influenced the usage in Spanish and other Romance languages of this symbol as a substitute for gender-specific language. For example, the Spanish and Portuguese words "amigo" and "amiga" would be replaced with amig@. The character is intended to resemble a mix of the letters "o" and "a". According to the Portuguese and Spanish grammar, this "mix" is unnecessary as the masculine grammatical gender is inclusive (it can refer to both males and females), while the feminine gender is exclusive (only for females). There is no English-like neuter gender in either Spanish or Portuguese.

Since a hotly debated part of the former Yugoslavia is called Kosovo by Serbs and Kosova by Albanians, the spelling Kosov@ was adopted by publications and groups seeking to manifest their neutrality.

With the rise of the internet, the "@" has been extensively used to denote internet-related material or companies, and as such has lost its previous connotations to most readers.

Hidden puns

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.

After the controversial U.S. presidential election, 2000, the alleged improprieties of the election prompted the use of such titles as pResident and (p)resident [34] [35] 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.

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 [36] [37] by its opponents.

The perception that membership in the United Nations is counter to US interests is denoted by the terms Un-ited Nations or EU-nited Nations (similarity to EU - European Union). Similarly, the perception that the United Nations is ineffectual (castrated) is denoted by the term EUN-ited Nations (similarity to eunuch).

Feminist theologian Mary Daly has used a virgule (slash) to make a point about patriarchy: gyn/ecology, stag/nation, the/rapist. [38]

In French, where con is an insulting word meaning 'moron', the word conservateur 'conservative' has been written con-servateur [39], con… servateur [40], or con(servateur) [41]. In a same intent, the neoconservatives are often called neo-cons in newspapers. [42]

Additional examples

Intentional misspellings, or spellings used to emphasize dialect, are often used to suggest illiteracy or ignorance. Thus pubblik skoolz, or public screwels, the latter initially associated with talk radio. Individual schools are also treated this way, "Hahvahd" and "Nucular" being well-known examples. Journalists may make a politicized editorial decision by choosing to differentially retain misspelled words, mispronounced words, dialect variants, or interjections. A similar phenomenon would be T-shirts saying "I is a kollege stoodent" or some such, suggesting that college students are ignorant.

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. For example, the term "Windoze", which emerged on Usenet in the early 1990s and was subsequently added to the Jargon File, is used in reference to Microsoft Windows; this alludes to criticism of its slow and unreliable performance issues.

Some toponyms are also spelt differently in order to emphasize some political view. For instance, Brasil (the proper spelling in Portuguese for "Brazil"), is used sometimes as a typo for Brazil in English texts. [43] Alternatively, the English spelling Brazil is used in Portuguese pieces of text as a way to denote Anti-Americanism or Anti-globalization sentiment.

See also

• Herstory
• Womyn
• Leet

External links

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