Satiric misspelling

Names and words are sometimes 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, @ replacing a, or ¢ replacing c). 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 19th century. The concept is continued today within the ranks of the Klan.

Barcelona squat and anarchist center, labeled "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. 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.

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

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

The video game series Mortal Kombat is well known for replacing the "hard c" sound with k.

Most KDE apps make use of this satirical misspelling as well, especially in regards to the first letter always being a K and sometimes replacing a C (i.e. Kaffeine, Konqueror, Kopete).

KKK replacing C or K

The most common usage of the letters "kkk" in politically 'satiric misspelling', is the spelling of "America' as "Amerikkka" in reference 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 (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 and also used by rapper Spice 1 for his album AmeriKKKa's Nightmare.

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.
• Demokkkrat (United States Democratic Party)
• Kkkapitalism (Capitalism)
• KKKlinton (Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton )
• Republikkkan (U.S. Republican Party)
• KKKramer (Michael Richards, who played Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld, had a racist incident at the Laugh Factory, in which the media dubbed KKKramer.)
• David DuKKKe (David Duke is a famous former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan)

Currency signs replacing similar letters

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" to indicate plutocracy, greed, corruption, or the perceived immoral or unethical accumulation of money. For example:

• Bu$h (George W. Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, or any member of the Bush family),
• ca$h (cash)
• ¢om¢a$t (Comcast)
• Compu$erve / CI$ (CompuServe) - one of the earliest examples
• 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
• "Green Chri$tma$", a song by Stan Freberg, satirizing over-commercialization of Christmas
• £eland $tanford, $tealin £anford (Leland Stanford)
• Micro$oft, M$ (Microsoft): used to emphasize the allegation that Microsoft has business practices that focus on making money rather than producing good products or looking after the end user's needs and interests. Microsoft was found to have violated United States anti-trust law by taking unfair advantage of its monopoly position by giving internet explorer away for free to anyone who purchased a Windows or Macintosh computer and pre-installing it on Windows computers so that you can use the internet right out of the box. See also: Criticism of Microsoft. A relevant misspelling is had in Microsoft's founder's name, Bill Gate$, and another relevant misspelling in the current CEO's name, $teve Ba££mer.
• App£e, (Apple Inc.): used in a similar way as Micro$oft, but with the Apple company. Relates to the company's product's high prices. Also criticized for taking advantage of loyal customers and upgrading products annually for an expensive price. Similarly, $teve Job$ is used for the company's owner just like "Bill Gate$" is used for Microsoft's owner.
• taxe$ (taxes)
• $hareca$h (Sharecash) For always forcing users to pay them and buy several items through spam surveys in order to download their files. Users were able to get around this by entering fake-but-real (randomly gathered information) information.
• 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.
• rapid$hare (Rapidshare)
• Ru$$ia (Russia): used in reference to perceived corruption in the country.
• Uncle $am (Uncle Sam)
• United $tates, United $tate$, U$, U$A (United States)
• 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)
• kla$$ (class) used to draw attention to the belief that American citizens are widely and unfairly ranked solely on terms of their material wealth
• Lar$ Used by critics of Lars Ulrich after he and Metallica sued and ultimately closed down Napster.
• $tern Used by critics of NBA commissioner David Stern.
• Harold Thoma$
• $ABAM (SABAM)
• $ky
• Uni$y$
• $kidmore, Owing$ and Merrill, or $OM: used by critics of the architectural and engineering firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.
• Orac£e (Oracle Corporation): Used by critics of Oracle Corporation after they acquired Sun Microsystems and their habit of being a patent troll (used in a similar way as M$ and App£e). "£arry €££i$on" is also used to insult Oracle Corporation in a similar way as "Bill Gate$".
• ￦indo￦$ (Microsoft Windows): used for critics of Microsoft Windows in a similar way as Micro$oft (see also Criticism of Microsoft Windows).
• Sakon (or $akon) ¥amamoto: used to emphasize Sakon Yamamoto's heavy financial backing.

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

"@" 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"

It is often used to combine feminine and masculine words in Spanish, such as Latin@ to mean Latino/Latina

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. 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" 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" by its opponents.
• The perception that membership in the United Nations is counter to US interests and sovereignty 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 slash to make a point about patriarchy: "gyn/ecology", "stag/nation", "the/rapist".
• In French, where con is an insulting word meaning 'moron', the word conservateur (conservative) has been written "con-servateur", "con… servateur" [10], or "con(servateur)". In a same intent, the neoconservatives are often called "neo-cons" in French newspapers, but same has also been used in American English to mock pseudo-conservatives or such pretending to hold conservative views.

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. Examples:

• 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. "Winblows" and "Winbloze" are also similar to "Windoze" in reference to Microsoft Windows as well.
• Another way is to transpose letters (pronunciation is less important). For example, "Untied.com" has been set up for critics of United Airlines.
• There are also various misspellings like this for specific Windows versions as well. For example, "XPee" for Windows XP, "Vi$ta" or "$hista" for Windows Vista, and "$leven" or "$levin" for Windows 7 are all widely used on various Web forums and other sites (like LinuxQuestions.org for instance).
• The Guardian is sometimes referred to by its anagram, Grauniad satirizing the newspaper's poor proofreading and frequent typographical errors. In a roughly simliar way, the FIA referred by FIArrari, mostly when they favours Scuderia Ferrari.

Some place names are also spelt 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. 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, mispronounciations, ungrammaticities, dialect variants, or interjections.

Intentional misspellings, or spellings used to emphasize dialect, are often used to suggest illiteracy or ignorance. Witness such permutations as "pubblik skoolz", or "public screwels", the latter initially associated with talk radio. A similar phenomenon would be T-shirts saying "I is a kollege stoodent," "Hookt on Foniks Wurks Fur Mee!" or some such, suggesting that college students are ignorant.

Misspellings may also be used to indicate a speaker's accent, when the writer finds that accent worthy of ridicule. A well-known example is nucular, perceived as a regional or uneducated pronunciation of nuclear; Hahvahd is meant to reflect the local pronunciation of Harvard University.

See also

• Herstory
• Womyn
• Leet

External links

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