Digraphia in Advertising: The Public as Guinea Pig

Abstract

Orthographic conventions adopted by advertisers for many consumer products depart significantly from ordinary standards of correctness. e.g., ARRID, BISKIT, MIX, DETANE, KLEEN, WHEY-FERS. This paper analyzes more than 1,500 expressions of this practice and suggests that advertising spelling 1) constitutes the graphic analog of what linguists call diglossia, 2) has influenced the criteria by which English readers judge correctness in spelling, and 3) is made possible by special properties of the graphic-phonological system with which English is written.