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The orthodox spellings of common words are often altered to make a political point, particularly in informal writing on the Internet, but also in some political writing that claims to oppose the status quo. For example, letters used to represent the hard "k" sound can be replaced with the letters "KKK," the initials of Ku Klux Klan; or the letter "S" can be replaced with a dollar sign ($).

"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 1800s. The concept is continued today within the ranks of the Klan. They call themselves "konservative KKK" or "klonservatives". It was common among 1960s and early 1970s United States leftists to write Amerika rather than "America" in referring to the United States. *," target="_blank" >*" target="_blank" >and is still used in political statements 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. It may additionally have been an allusion to the title of Franz Kafka's 1927 novel Amerika.

In the 1987 TV miniseries Amerika, it denoted a Soviet-conquered United States of America.

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 in Italian too) is to write okupa rather than "ocupa" (meaning a building or area occupied by squatters *), which is particularly remarkable because the letter "k" is not found in native Spanish words. It probably stems from the Basque language, Euskera, which does often use the letter "k", and is spoken in a region which abounds in political radicalism. This is particularly associated with Spanish anarchist movements.

"KKK" replacing "C" or "K"

The most common usage of the letters "kkk" in alternative political spelling is the spelling of "America" as Amerikkka. A reference to the Ku Klux Klan, this is often done to indicate the belief that the United States or American society is fundamentally racist, oppressive and corrupt. 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.

The San Francisco Bay View regularly spells America as "Amerikkka". *, [http://www.sfbayview.com/121703/herbiehancock121703.shtml

The letters "KKK" have been inserted into many other words, to indicate similar perceived racism, oppression or corruption. Common alternative spellings include:

"$" replacing "S"; "€" replacing "E"

The dollar sign can be inserted in the place of the letter "S" to indicate plutocracy, greed, corruption, or the perceived immoral or unethical accumulation of money. For example:

  • kla$$ (class) used to draw attention to the fact that American citizens are widely and unfairly ranked solely on terms of their material wealth *
  • $ilver RavenWolf (Silver RavenWolf) *: based on the opinion that the popular Wiccan author "Silver RavenWolf" (Jenine E. Trayer) is caught up in her commercial success
  • $ky Used by critics of the British satellite television broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting
  • $GA€ Used by spaniard internauts to refer SGAE, spanish version of RIAA.

A recent related usage is replacing "E" with the Euro sign "€", as in €$$O, €urope *, and €C for the European Commission (EC) (which is used by those critical of alleged bribery and corruption in the EC).

Swastika replacing "S"

During George W. Bush's trip to Argentina for the Summit of the Americas in November 2005, many protesters were seen with T-shirts and signs in which the "s" in Bush was replaced with a right-facing swastika, in the style used by the Nazis.

An earlier replacement is the Sig rune as used by the Nazi SS. Basque leftist nationalists have for exampled spelled "PSOE" as PᛋᛋOE.

Hammer and sickle replacing "C"

During the presidency of Bill Clinton, some far-right anti-Clinton protesters held signs with a hammer and sickle (☭) replacing the "C" in Clinton due to his perceived leftist tendencies. (This has also happened with Hillary Clinton as well.) The ACLU has also seen this treatment by its critics, being dubbed such things as "American ☭ommunist Lawyers Union" and the like.

"@" replacing "A" and/or "O"

Since at least 1980, Anarchists have used the "at sign" ("@") as a readily handy character to represent the circled letter A. This has been extended to substituting it for the letter "A" as in the Crass fanzine "Toxic Gr@fity" *

This may have influenced the usage in Spanish and other Romance languages of this symbol as a politically correct substitute for so-called sexist language. For example, the Spanish and Portuguese words "amigo" and "amiga" would be replaced with amig@. The character is intended to resemble a mix of the letters "o" and "a". According to the Portuguese and Spanish grammar, this "mix" is not needed because in both languages the masculine grammatical gender is inclusive (it can refer to both males and females), but the feminine gender is exclusive (only for females). There is no English-like neuter gender in either Spanish or Portuguese. The Spanish-language website of 2006 Mexican presidential election candidate Patricia Mercado Castro of the Social Democratic and Peasant Alternative Party displays text containing the neutral -@; once redirected, scroll down to see full text.

Since a hotly debated part of the former Yugoslavia is called Kosovo by Serbs and Kosova by Albanians, the spelling Kosov@ was adopted by publications and groups seeking to manifest their neutrality.

With the rise of the internet, the "@" has been extensively used to denote internet-related material or companies, and as such has lost its previous connotations to most readers.

"*" replacing "O" and "A" or "I" and "E"

In Italian web writings (chats, forums, mailing-lists, pages, etc.) it is common to see "*" replacing the final vowels "o" and "a" or "i" and "e" (respectively masculine and feminine singular and masculine and feminine plural). Even though one could think this form lack of number, it is actually deduced from the context, so "*" (generally) replace only a pair of vowel: "amic*" instead of "amico/a" ("friend") XOR instead of "amici/amiche" ("friends"); yes, in the last case "*" is instead of the pair ("i", "he"), that is not a pair of vowels.

A more 'complex' substitution may involve articles: "solidali con * compagn*" --- if it is singular, it is instead of "solidali con il/la compagno/a" ("solidly behind the comrade"); if it is plural, it is instead of "solidali con i/le compagni/e" ("solidly behind the comrades"). More concisely the first "*" stand for ("il", "la") XOR ("gli", "le"), the second one stand for ("o", "a") XOR ("i", "e").

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.

After the controversial U.S. presidential election, 2000, the alleged improprieties of the election prompted the use of such titles as pResident and (p)resident [http://www.gainesvillehumanists.org/alerts.htm 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 [http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=115660&cid=9794643 by its opponents.

The perception that membership in the United Nations is counter to US interests 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 virgule (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 *." target="_blank" >In a same intent, the neoconservatives are often called neo-cons in newspapers. [http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/acheter.cgi?offre=ARCHIVES&type_item=ART_ARCH_30J&objet_id=893321

Additional examples

Intentional misspellings, or spellings used to emphasize dialect, are often used to suggest illiteracy or ignorance. Thus pubblik skoolz, or public screwels, the latter initially associated with talk radio. Individual schools are also treated this way, "Hahvahd" and "Nucular" being well-known examples. Journalists may make a politicized editorial decision by choosing to differentially retain misspelled words, mispronounced words, dialect variants, or interjections.

See also

External links

Politics

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Alternative political spelling".

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