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I was thinking the other day about Kleenex, which is purposely misspelled from clean-ex, if that makes sense, and I was wondering if there was a word for purposely misspelling a word, or name.

NickelMonster
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    Some people might call it a missed-ache. Others might call it a pun ;-) – Jim Nov 16 '13 at 04:36
  • Note by the way that Kleene is a surname. – Kaz Nov 16 '13 at 05:07
  • Brand names that are as well-known as Kleenex frequently become part of the language, as I am sure you realise. Few people in Britain vacuum-clean their homes. Most people 'hoover' them. I don't know if this has any connection to what you are asking, but it is an interesting topic. – WS2 Nov 16 '13 at 09:52
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    I'd call it marketing. – long Nov 16 '13 at 20:13
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    If Ex and X mean Formerly, or Not, then Kleenex means "it is not clean" and Timex means "it is not time". There are probably others as well. –  Apr 20 '16 at 18:55
  • Note that the 'ex' part is actually an abbreviated form of 'tex' which was part of the Kotex trademark where it in turn was an abbreviation of 'textile'. In Kleenex it is just a suffix added to emphasis the product's familial relationship to the manufacturer's existing products. As a suffix developed to enhance their naming policy, I think it is difficult to describe 'ex' as a miss-spelling of anything. https://www.kleenex.com/en-us/faq The letter K is often used in advertising and lends itself to some 'creative misspellings' https://shonaliburke.com/k-is-king-in-brand-and-company-naming/ – Spagirl Mar 10 '17 at 12:27

3 Answers3

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Deliberate misspelling of words is referred to as eye dialect. It means use of nonstandard spelling. Examples include enuff, goffik and wuz (for was). Another good self-explanatory term is chatspeak defined in the Urban Dictioanry as

Chatspeak, aka netspeak. This is a form of speech in which one shortens words and replaces the letter "s" with the letter "z" in an effort to save time and look cool. Chatspeakers also rarely use capitalization or correct punctuation.

As a general term I recommend heterography (cf. orthography).

OED: Spelling that differs from that which is correct according to current usage; ‘incorrect’ spelling.

user49727
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Although most dictionaries simply define it as bad spelling, other sources define cacography as deliberate misspelling, often for comic effect.

Gnawme
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How about : Cacography is deliberate comic misspelling, a type of humour similar to malapropism.

Kelly Babin
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