Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

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Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

deliberately mispelled (sp!)

In this question, I deliberately misspelled “mispelling.” 

Is (sp!) an appropriate abbreviation to stand for “deliberately misspelled?”

Many people use

(sp?) for (I don’t know how to spell that word)

Julie Andrews sang Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (sp?) with great gusto.

(sic) or [sic] is not appropriate here. I understand that [sic] is used to indicate that the word was spelled that way in document that is being quoted or cited.

The new commander consumed [sic] control of the military base.

(illustration modified from an actual case of using the wrong word)

So, it seems to me that we can use

(sp!) for (I am deliberately mispelling (sp!) this word

QUESTION: Is there a better abbreviation, or a well-known abbreviation for this usage?

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Comments

Deliberate misspelling is usually done for effect, innit? - I would imagine signalling that it is deliberate would rather spoil that effect. Cos (sp!) it wouldn't be very kool (sp!) if yer (sp!) had to tell people the whole time you were deliberately misspelling, would it? - Imagine the signs - Krazy (sp!) Kuts (sp!), Frying tonite (sp!) etc.

But I'm intrigued. When would you want to deliberately misspell something unless you were quoting someone else, when you could use [sic], or suggesting that something was dialect - when you wouldn't want to add anything - There's a famous expression in Britain (from a comedy show) - "Am I bovvered?" - to add any symbol to that would ruin it.

Warsaw Will Dec-06-2014

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