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Created By: Micah on July 4, 2009
Troped

Deliberately Misspelled Title

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Page Type:
Trope
Some works have titles that could have come straight from Rouge Angles of Satin. Almost always, it's because some character makes a significant misspelling, so expect a Title Drop.

Compare Xtreme Kool Letterz.

Film
  • Inglourious Basterds. (Anyone know why? The Other Wiki doesn't say...)
  • The Pursuit of Happyness, whose title is taken from a misspelled piece of graffiti.

Literature
  • Feersum Endjinn by Iain M. Banks. One of the narrators is an exceedingly poor speller.
  • Love and Freindship by Jane Austen is an Epistolary Novel whose narrator consistently writes "freind" for "friend".

(And yes, this would probably actually go at Delibratly Mispelt Tittle or some such, with a redirect.)
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Community Feedback Replies: 24
  • July 4, 2009
    Nomic
    Stephen King's Pet Semetary (spelled as it was written on a sign made by some kids outside the cemetary in the story).
  • July 4, 2009
    random surfer
    Back when Cracked was on paper it always referred to itself as a "mazagine." When Cracked went online they called themselves a "webstie."
  • July 4, 2009
    MikeArrow
    Quentin Tarantino is being a smart alec I would guess, also perhaps to put a more personal stamp on the film? Also that's how it was spelled on the script cover (handwritten by Quentin himself) that was leaked a while ago. Perhaps copyright reasons? To avoid similarity with the Italian war film "Inglorious Bastards?"
  • July 4, 2009
    Unknown Troper
    From IMDB, Quentin:

    Here's the thing. I'm never going to explain that. You do an artistic flourish like that, and to explain it would just take the piss out of it and invalidate the whole stroke in the first place.
  • July 4, 2009
    TB Tabby
    Mortal Kombat, which turned the "replacing Cs with Ks" into a running theme.
  • July 4, 2009
    Unknown Troper
    I think Xtreme Kool Letterz should be excluded.
  • July 4, 2009
    Bisected8
    The movie/book Charlie has a backwards R in it's title.
  • July 4, 2009
    Duncan
    Charly was actually based on Flowers For Algernon.

    Should we include misspellings that turn out to be puns, such as "Women Behind Bras" and "The Salad of the Bad Cafe"? I feel probably not.
  • July 4, 2009
    SharmHedgehog
    Samurai Shodown. Whether this was for Rule Of Cool or part of the Blind Idiot Translation the series is known for is unknown, but it's remained to this day.
  • July 4, 2009
    Micah
    I agree that Xtreme Kool Letterz are different (though certainly related enough to be worth a link). I'm also fine with excluding punny misspellings, though I wouldn't complain if they eventually Slippery Troped their way in.
  • July 4, 2009
    foxley
    The Australian sketch comedy show The Micallef Program was the The Micallef Pogram for its third season. This was because of running debate about the correct spelling of program/programme. It was 'Program' in the first season and became 'Programme' for the second. They went for deliberate misspelling in the third in an attempt to stop the letters.
  • July 4, 2009
    Egregious Eric
    Kaiju Big Battel?
  • July 4, 2009
    Unknown Troper
    So we're excluding other language tropes like Xtreme Kool Letterz and Magick which are language tropes that just happen to appear in the title.
  • July 4, 2009
    EponymousKid
    I'm pretty much totally positive that Inglorious Basterds is about at least two people with the shared last name "Basterd."
  • July 4, 2009
    Clerval
    Jane Austen was only fourteen when she wrote Love and Freindship... it's not deliberate.
  • July 4, 2009
    Micah
    IMDB lists no characters whose last name is "Basterd".

    Yeah, I'm now not sure if Love and Freindship should be included. Having read through the introduction to my copy, I'm willing to believe the misspelling wasn't intentional on Austen's part (since she corrected it later in life); on the other hand, it's definitely intentional on the part of her editors.
  • July 4, 2009
    Sofos
    Imho, Xtreme Kool Letterz (and, in some instances, Zero Wingrish) is a subtrope of this. Though I'd suggest not to limit this only to titles.

    • The rock group Slade liked to give their songs deliberately misspelled titles
    • The Russian Internet subculture, padonki, uses deliberately misspelled words. One of the most well known is "Preved!" (misspelling of privet - "hello")
    • Maskerade, The Beatles, Cyberia, etc. are puns that look like deliberate misspellings
    • Many in-universe titles in Discworld are misspelled.
    • Led Zeppelin
    • Def Leppard
    • Ahem... Soulja Boy
    • Gangstaspeak in general likes to use "-a", "-ah" instead of "-er", X Treme Kool Letterz, and some other misspellings.
  • July 4, 2009
    Lee M
    Music: numerus song titlez by Slade (eg "Cum On, Feel the Noize", "Gudbuy T'Jane", etc), as well as their album Slayed?
  • July 4, 2009
    Sofos
    2Lee M: Slademind? :)
  • July 4, 2009
    Micah
    I think "all deliberate misspellings ever" is too broad to be interesting; I'd rather focus on the reason behind the misspelling. Tropes we already have along these lines:

    That leaves:
    • Misspellings which "filter up" from some person or character who does them accidentally (which is more or less the original trope I had in mind). I suppose these don't have to be titles, but I can't think of any examples which aren't.
    • Misspellings for punny effect (Cyberia, Maskerade, etc.)

    These want to be two separate tropes, I think, but I'm not sure what to call either of them...
  • July 4, 2009
    Unknown Troper
    The titles of many of the early Popeye cartoons are spelt the way Popeye would say them.
  • July 4, 2009
    Unknown Troper
    Basterd example: Vyvyan of The Young Ones.

    And for the record, "mispelt" is a misspelling. "Misspelt" isn't.
  • July 9, 2009
    Micah
    So, my current theory is:

    Any objections?
  • May 2, 2012
    katiek
    nevermind
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=z9n0nyshn1rn462w919high8