Sensational spelling

Sensational spelling is the deliberate spelling of a word in an incorrect or non-standard way for special effect.

Sensational spellings are common in advertising and product placement. In particular, brand names such as Cadbury's "Creme Egg" (standard English spelling: cream), Weet-Bix (wheat), Blu-ray (blue), Kellogg's "Froot Loops" (fruit) or Hasbro's Playskool (school) may use unexpected spellings to draw attention to or trademark an otherwise common word. In video games, a well-known example of sensational spelling is "Mortal Kombat" (combat); some versions of this game also include an "Insert Koin" (coin) prompt in the arcade mode.

Sensational spelling may take on a cult value in popular culture, such as the heavy metal umlaut.

During the 1960s, bands often included in their names misspelled words and/or homophones that played on double meanings of the names as spoken. Examples include The Beatles, an intentional misspelling of "beetles",the Byrds, and Led Zeppelin, in which "led" was deliberately misspelled to make clear it is pronounced lead (as in the metal) rather than the other pronunciation.

The deliberate misspelling of words in album or song titles has its origins in early 1970s rock, such as

In the 1980s it became common with funk artists such as Prince (e.g. "U Got The Look", "I Would Die 4 U"), and came to be epitomized in the rap and hip hop genres, with both song titles (e.g. Usher's "U Remind Me" and T-Pain's "Buy U A Drank") and artists' names (e.g. Ludacris, Phanatik, Timbaland, Xzibit, Gorillaz) using the form. Sensational spelling was common amongst nu metal bands of the late 1990s and early 2000s (e.g., Korn, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit). The term "nu metal" itself is a sensational spelling of "new metal", and sometimes even stylized as "nü-metal", with an additional metal umlaut.

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