Talk:Sensational spelling

Deletion proposal

Wow! Putting up a proposal for deletion within three hours of an article being created doesn't exactly allow us much chance to do something with it! OF COURSE this is not original research. This is a standard term in linguistics which does deserve an article. What has been put here is a stub, a place marker, which will allow a proper article to grow over time. So, uh, maybe you should give it a chance? --Doric Loon 16:28, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

It is not hard to find examples of academic writers using this phrase. Just did a quick Google search and found the following straight off: [1]. This is a linguistics paper on spelling in Borneo by Anthea Gupta at the University of Leeds. Not really citable in the article, because it only mentions the phenomenon in passing, but at least enough to verify that this is not my idea. That should justify removing the deletion proposal tag. --Doric Loon 16:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Creme is a standard, secondary spelling

According to m-w.com, creme is a perfectly good word in its own right. Two of the three definitions provided refer back to cream. So it's not a particularly good example for this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GaryFx (talk • contribs) 14:13, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

I'm remended of a particularly good example courtesy Avery Schreiber, who appeared in an educational film about nutrition and observed of the sensationally-spelled breakfast cereal Froot Loops, "If they were to put F-R-U-I-T on the front of the box, they would be obligated to put some F-R-U-I-T IN the box as well." Asat 05:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what dictionary GaryFx used, but as far as I know, creme is the French spelling and is used in English only when the French pronunciation is implied: All my girls are the creme de la creme! Though of course real French has accents. So it's not a bad example, but possibly is a bit weak by itself... So, Asat, thanks for the frooty example, which I will add to the text. --Doric Loon 10:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Just checked a whole set of standard dictionaries. With reference to the edible substance, creme is not an acceptable spelling in either the UK or the US. Cadburys are based in Birmingham England, and their choice of spelling was a conscious distancing from the standard spelling in England. It is therefore a clear example of sensational spelling. --Doric Loon 14:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Dodging Rules

The article currently contains this sentence: "It has also occasionally been used to dodge regulations which dictate how much of an ingredient a product must contain in order to be featured on the label." Do we have a reference for this? I know that the Avery Schreiber quote above implies this in a sort of whimsical way, but I also know that "Smoky Bacon flavoured potato crisps" are suitable for vegetarians, so clearly it is legal to use a word like bacon or fruit to describe the flavour even if this flavour is created chemically without any use of actual bacon or fruit; as long as you are only saying it tastes LIKE it, you are OK. And actually, if the advertising WERE in breach of trade descriptions laws, I doubt if a sensational spelling would protect the producers from prosecution. If they actually said "this contains froot" when it contains no fruit, they could be prosecuted for deliberately misleading advertising. --Doric Loon (talk) 13:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Magick

Burat seems to be an inappropriate example, as it is simply an archaic spelling resurrected for the purpose of highlighting a specific distinction (mundane illusionist art vs. paranormal ritual magic). This is explained at the article Magick now. I don't think this case is comparable with the others. A similar example is byte, a neologism formed from bite with variant spelling, and I'm sure there are others but I can't think of any other example off the top of my head – well, I guess the spelling of disc would be one, where a spelling variation (with disk being the older variant) was co-opted to express a semantic differentiation. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)