Why are things intentionally misspelled?

Here's a good one for all of the Spelling Police out there: Why are products given intentionally misspelled names?

Below are just a smattering of examples:

Pak-Lite instead of Pack-Light
QuiqLite instead of QuickLight
Val-Pak instead of Val-Pack
Fresh Pac Apples instead of Fresh Pack Apples
Blu-Ray instead of Blue-Ray

The most commonly misspelled words I've come across are "light", "quick", and "pack".

My guess is to make it stand out.

So the vendors could get trademarks.

You can evidently get trademarks on anything. You stand a better chance of avoiding conflict if you use an odd spelling.

Pacific Bell Telephone Company paid several hundreds of thousands of dollars to a firm that came up with Pacific Telesis as a new name. It was 1) different 2) unused world wide and 3) resembled the original name enough to leverage good will and 4) had some meaning in latin.

It was commonly shortened to PacTel.

Hell, I could have done better than that for a lot cheaper. Like lunch and a gift certificate.

Those deliberately mispelled (called phonetic) words were thought to be a bit more slick and progressive by marketeers a few decades ago. Now maybe, it just saves a tiny bit of time.....

p.s.-on the subject of the most common word being spelled wrongly on CPF it has got to be: lense -properly spelled lens -without that last "e".
The last 100 times I've seen it used in posts, it has been misspelled about 85 times. :green:

vcal said:

Those deliberately mispelled (called phonetic) words were thought to be a bit more slick and progressive by marketeers a few decades ago. Now maybe, it just saves a tiny bit of time.....

p.s.-on the subject of the most common word being spelled wrongly on CPF it has got to be: lense -properly spelled lens -without that last "e".
The last 100 times I've seen it used in posts, it has been misspelled about 85 times. :green:

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I didn't even know I was misspelling it. It seems lense only applies to those being used to form an image. I'll be sure to drop that last e from now on.

Sometimes companies intentionally misspell words in product names to avoid regulations, i.e., to screw the public. For example, McD's used to call their "milkshakes" chocoshakes, or some such, because the FDA requires milk to be in a milkshake. Their "shakes" were concocted from corn syrup, artificial flavorings, and other chemicals, but no milk products. (Same reason Wendy's calls their dessert a "Frosty", not a milkshake or ice cream). So, a lot of uninformed consumers assumed they were getting milkshakes when in actuality it was just a high calorie chemical cocktail with a lot of air whipped into it. Remember that the next time you see words like "cheezburger" (no cheese), or "bac-o-bits" (no bacon).

Another thing commonly spelled incorrectly on CPF is PETA, which people keep spelling as PITA. PITA is a type of flat bread, and PETA is an acronym standing for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is a group, generally thought of as a bunch of psychopathic "beehaches" (you know what I mean), that takes an extremist route while fighting for animal rights.

I see this mispelled on CPF so often, that I actually wonder if there is a reason people could be doing this on purpose.

Regarding the deliberate misspellings in product names, I actually find the misspelled words to be more catchy to my eyes, except in the case of Quiqlite, I think QuikLite looks catchier. (QwikLite looks better, to me, also)

BigBaller said:

I didn't even know I was misspelling it. It seems lense only applies to those being used to form an image. I'll be sure to drop that last e from now on.

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Here's a little correction to my last post:
There actually is some legitimacy in the lens(e) spelling, as I just dicovered in one of my old references. It's obsolete, but still legit.

Trashman said:

Another thing commonly spelled incorrectly on CPF is PETA, which people keep spelling as PITA. PITA is a type of flat bread, and PETA is an acronym standing for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is a group, generally thought of as a bunch of psychopathic "beehaches" (you know what I mean), that takes an extremist route while fighting for animal rights.

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PITA is also an abbreviation for 'pain in the a**'.

Intentional misspelling gives it a somewhat 'unique' name...

On the topic of misspellings, I quite often see the word "teh" being used instead of "the". Is this an intentional misspelling or just typing too fast? I think the word I see being misspelled the most though has got to be "lose". It's often being spelled "loose". I sometimes catch myself typing the wrong one too, oops.

Misspellings in media and product names engender an image that is rebellious, playful, and individualistic ... an image companies hope is transferred to the actual product.

A good example of a similar (but not nomenclature) imagery is found in the elaborate advertisements for the humble underarm deodorant, where buxom lasses fling themselves wantonly at any young male who uses the product being advertised. The image shown is hopefully transferred to the product, so when the customer sees a chemical stick in a plastic tube used to inhibit odor-causing bacteria with that particular brand name on it, he makes the connection to the images portrayed in the ad, and buys it.

I'm a sucker for a pretty girl. I'm generally disgusted and repelled by the deliberate misspellings of words in product names. (Clever puns are a different matter.)

There is enough inadvertent misspelling in the world already without the wretched buffoonery of doing it on purpose. (Wordplay and subtle jokes, of course, are high art and do not apply.)

Jayman said:

On the topic of misspellings, I quite often see the word "teh" being used instead of "the". Is this an intentional misspelling or just typing too fast?

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It could either be intentional or a mis-type. The 'teh' word is equivalent to the word 'the' in 'leet'(elite) talk...

Don't mind my intentional use of the single qoute over the double-qoute character. :naughty:

Technical words cannot be trademarked or copyrighted. Worked for a company that started out calling itself Xenon. Until the company expanded to the USA. Xenon was not allowed otherwise scientists would not be able to refer to the rare gas as xenon. Or flashlight manufacturers not able to sell their wares c/w xenon bulb. The company changed it's name to Zenon. Sounds the same spelled slightly different.
Bayer had to call Asprin Aspirin. Sounds the same spelled slightly different.

Do not know how Apple computer or Surefire got away with it. Maybe "Sure fire" is not allowed but "surefire" is.

Cute names with funny spelling can sometimes backfire. Does anyone know how often Nite-ize Pock-its are spelled wrong on CPF. I have to grab a pouch to make sure I get it right.

I have to grab a Night-eyes Mini-pockets (spelling?) pouch. LOL

I was thinking about some of the other common scams that are used to trick consumers in supermarkets. Anytime you see the word "flavored", you're probably getting ripped off. "Chocolate flavored" cookies or whatever normally won't have any chocolate in it. It has some artificial chemical flavoring that tastes similar to chocolate, thus it is "chocolate flavored". Products that are genuine don't use the word "flavored" in their title. When you think you're buying fruit juice but the name includes "drink", "punch", or "cocktail", etc., in it's title, it's not real. If it doesn't say "juice", it isn't.

The_LED_Museum said:

Why are products given intentionally misspelled names?

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It's kewler.

"Night Eyes" is teh ghey. "Nite-Eyez" is teh r0xX0r!!!eleventy-one!!!

lightmeup said:

Sometimes companies intentionally misspell words in product names to avoid regulations, i.e., to screw the public. For example, McD's used to call their "milkshakes" chocoshakes, or some such, because the FDA requires milk to be in a milkshake. Their "shakes" were concocted from corn syrup, artificial flavorings, and other chemicals, but no milk products. (Same reason Wendy's calls their dessert a "Frosty", not a milkshake or ice cream). So, a lot of uninformed consumers assumed they were getting milkshakes when in actuality it was just a high calorie chemical cocktail with a lot of air whipped into it. Remember that the next time you see words like "cheezburger" (no cheese), or "bac-o-bits" (no bacon).

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I think the McDonald's shake thing is an urban legend:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/mcdshake.htm

Their current shakes contain milk and cream:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/app_controller.nutrition.categories.ingredients.index.html#6

Greg

Hookd_On_Photons said:

It's kewler.

"Night Eyes" is teh ghey. "Nite-Eyez" is teh r0xX0r!!!eleventy-one!!!

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Whatever works 4 U.

Now that we're on the topic of spelling, I keep wondering why a certain flashlight reviewer keeps typing toliet instead of toilet.... :duck: