Comments on: How Phat is Phishing these Days? http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=75 A Blog about Words and Language(s) from alphaDictionary.com Tue, 21 May 2013 19:53:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.6 By: Joe Banks http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=75&cpage=1#comment-128176 Joe Banks Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:57:23 +0000 http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=75#comment-128176 You do realize that phat is an acronym and not just a silly spelling of fat dating back at least to the '60s, right? Pretty hot and tempting. It has evolved over the years to mean something is pretty good or excellent. You do realize that phat is an acronym and not just a silly spelling of fat dating back at least to the ’60s, right? Pretty hot and tempting. It has evolved over the years to mean something is pretty good or excellent.

]]> By: Cody Brimhal http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=75&cpage=1#comment-2032 Cody Brimhal Fri, 17 Nov 2006 02:28:12 +0000 http://www.alphadictionary.com/blog/?p=75#comment-2032 Silliness? Misspelling? Are you sure you don't mean helpful and correct? Both of your example words demonstrate a seemingly common process that slang goes through. Besides disambiguating the meanings of the words when they appear in writing (e.g. "that is one fat car" and "I was arrested for fishing" are more ambiguous than they would be with the alternative spellings), the mark the words' origins in different communities. Off-beat misspellings are common for street slang, and the "ph" in <i>phreak</i> pays homage to the community of <i>phreakers</i> (a blend of "phone" and "freak") that coined today's slang usage of the word. If your point were about "creative" spelling changes that apply to words without changing their meanings, then I'd be right there with you (I will, however, overlook your creative spelling of "misspelling"). But what's going on here is nothing like that. The spelling changes in question apply to words with meanings distinct from (albeit derivative of) their common English counterparts. Insofar as they serve to create--rather than confuse--distinctions in meaning, how is this bad? Silliness? Misspelling? Are you sure you don’t mean helpful and correct? Both of your example words demonstrate a seemingly common process that slang goes through. Besides disambiguating the meanings of the words when they appear in writing (e.g. “that is one fat car” and “I was arrested for fishing” are more ambiguous than they would be with the alternative spellings), the mark the words’ origins in different communities. Off-beat misspellings are common for street slang, and the “ph” in phreak pays homage to the community of phreakers (a blend of “phone” and “freak”) that coined today’s slang usage of the word.

If your point were about “creative” spelling changes that apply to words without changing their meanings, then I’d be right there with you (I will, however, overlook your creative spelling of “misspelling”). But what’s going on here is nothing like that. The spelling changes in question apply to words with meanings distinct from (albeit derivative of) their common English counterparts. Insofar as they serve to create–rather than confuse–distinctions in meaning, how is this bad?

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