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Usenet Posted 21 years ago
Usage

Term for deliberate misspelling

There is a trend in the internet chat community to mimic popular misspellings of words as a means of emphasis. Two examples I've identified so far:

"You were pwned!" (as a variant of owned, which is slang for 'to kick someone's ass')
"Best thread evar!"
Is there a term for this phenomenon? Should there be?

Steven Howell
Why do we park in driveways and drive on parkways?
  

Top answer

If there were a term, it would probably be misspelled: Something like 'mispelling' comes to mind.

  • If there were a term, it would probably be misspelled: Something like 'mispelling' comes to mind.
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42 Answers
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If there were a term, it would probably be misspelled: Something like 'mispelling' comes to mind.
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[nq:1]There is a trend in the internet chat community to mimic popular misspellings of words as a means of emphasis. Two examples I've identified so far: "You were pwned!" (as a variant of owned, which is slang for 'to kick someone's ***')[/nq]
I would think that "owned" (or "pwned") would mean to be kicked in one's ***, and not to do the kicking. That is, if John Doe is "owned," then someone
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In article , at (Email Removed) hath writ:
[nq:1]If there were a term, it would probably be misspelled: Something like 'mispelling' comes to mind.[/nq]
Sometimes I deliberately misspell a word as an aid to correct pronunciation and vice versa. Some folks here deliberately misspell certain words ("redd") to avoid cornfusion or to represent dialect. Other times, I'll misspell a word just cuz
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[nq:1]Sometimes I deliberately misspell a word as an aid to correct pronunciation and vice versa.[/nq]
James Kelman writes "***" in How Late It Was, How Late. He also uses "couldnay" and the like, so you might be led to conclude that there is something especially Scottish about the voiceless final consonant of "***". But there isn't. I can only guess why he uses the spelling he does.
R.
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[nq:1]There is a trend in the internet chat community to mimic popularmisspellings of words as a means of emphasis. Two examples I've identified so far: "You were pwned!" (as a variant of owned, which is slang for 'to kicksomeone's ***')[/nq]
I think that's part of "leet" (or "l337"), though probably not all deliberate misspellings qualify. A Web search, urbandictionary.com, or Wikipedia will
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[nq:1]If there were a term, it would probably be misspelled: Something like 'mispelling' comes to mind.[/nq]
I've seen (and used) mipselling.

John Dean
Oxford
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[nq:1]"Best thread evar!"[/nq]
"Evar" is (was?) Valley-girl English.
Adrian
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(Email Removed) typed thusly:
[nq:1]Here, in aue, it is common to use "cow-orkers." (Other examples will spring to mind the minute I hit "Send.") It's just a sort of "insider" usage, a jargon or argot or what-have-you. It can involve mishyphenation (mishy-phens) or misspelling. Initialisms and acronyms, too, NTTAWWT.[/nq]
News froup. Although I think that's a generic Usenet mispeling rathe
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[nq:2]If there were a term, it would probably be misspelled: Something like 'mispelling' comes to mind.[/nq]
[nq:1]I've seen (and used) mipselling.[/nq]
That's disdigitia. If I didn't reread everything before sending, half my wrods would be like taht.

dg (domain=ccwebster)
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[nq:2]I've seen (and used) mipselling.[/nq]
[nq:1]That's disdigitia. If I didn't reread everything before sending, half my wrods would be like taht.[/nq]
Talking to myself again... I just changed the word to "dysdigia". Much easier to say, and parallel to its counterpart in reading.
dg (domain=ccwebster)

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