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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132303
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:04am | IP Logged | 1
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Cogitating on things from another thread… Most of us, one time or another, have probably encountered someone who declares him/herself to be a HUGE Spider-Man fan, yet who insists on calling the character Spiderman.Well, I suppose this is not such a humongous deal in an of itself. I have a page of Steve Ditko original art from the 12th issue of the original series, and across the top some functionary at Marvel wrote "Spiderman". What intrigues me, tho, is how adamant some people become about the misspelling -- and not about getting it right, but about their "right" to get it wrong. All too often it's "What's the big deal? It's only comic books!" which confuses me no end, since we're talking, here, about people who are loudly declaring themselves to be fans. Do we see this elsewhere in fandom? Setting aside the mangling of the names of artists, writers, and other professional folk, are there forums where, for instance, Batman fans discuss Bruce Wain and insist upon their right to do so?
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Kevin Hagerman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 April 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 17997
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:08am | IP Logged | 2
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I hate misspellings and I hope to be corrected whenever I commit one. I try to use spellcheck before every post because I can't stand it when I screw up. And that's what it is: a screw-up. If ya spell a name wrong, it's just flat out spelled wrong. If ya hate being called on it, QUIT SPELLING IT WRONG.
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Greg Kirkpatrick
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 15 June 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2193
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:09am | IP Logged | 3
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Do we see this elsewhere in fandom? Setting aside the mangling of the names of artists, writers, and other professional folk, are there forums where, for instance, Batman fans discuss Bruce Wain and insist upon their right to do so?
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Bizarre. I really can't think of a case where this happens (besides the aforementioned Spiderman/Spider-Man issue). Maybe these guys are such huge fans of Peter Palmer they feel they can call him what they want.
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Aaron Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 06 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 10461
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:11am | IP Logged | 4
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When I first started posting here, I made the mistake of typing "Spiderman" and felt quite stupid about it afterwards. It's simple, really. Spider-Man is the correct spelling. Spiderman is wrong. There's no reason for any further argument.
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Joe Franklin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 785
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:11am | IP Logged | 5
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To me, it would be comparable to someone trying to spell my name "Jo" instead of "Joe" (it happens a lot). A simple correction usually works. Not sure why some folks insist that it's okay to spell something wrong, decrying it as no big deal, or as their "right".
Joe
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Paulo Pereira
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 24 April 2006
Posts: 15539
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:15am | IP Logged | 6
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Heck, people sometimes spell my name with an 'o' in place of a 'u' (sometimes here on this very board) even when the correct spelling is displayed. I don't mind so much, being as it's just a variation, but it is at least somewhat curious. I actually see this somewhat often in online forums: a given word will be shown with its correct spelling, yet someone will seem to insist on misspelling it.
Edited by Paulo Pereira on 22 March 2007 at 8:16am
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Paul Greer
Byrne Robotics Security
Joined: 18 August 2004
Posts: 14186
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:34am | IP Logged | 7
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I'm a notoriously horrible speller. But I think I can get the names right of the comic characters I've read for 30 years. If I can do it, so can anyone whose read the comic for more than a year. It takes an extra second to add the hyphen.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132303
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:47am | IP Logged | 8
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It takes an extra second to add the hyphen.
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Therein lies my principle objections to abbreviations like "Supes" or "Bats" or "Maggie". How much extra effort does it take, really, to type "Superman" or "Batman" or "Magneto"? In the case of the last, there, it requires but a single "extra" keystroke.It's all part of the same mix, I expect. Insisting on spelling Spider-Man without the hyphen, or calling Dr. Doom "Doomsy" (if you are anyone other than the Thing!) really serves only as a further demonstration of that ol' debbil lack of respect. The embarassment that someone might think >choke< you actually cared about these characters!
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4829
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 8:54am | IP Logged | 9
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I can see the mistake if you're spelling J'onn J'onzz, or Mr. Mxyzptlk, or some other crazy alien names, but Spider-Man shouldn't be so difficult......
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132303
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 9:00am | IP Logged | 10
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I have been mocked for "pronouncing" the apostrophes in J'Onn J'Onzz. Juh-on Juh-owns.I wonder how those people pronounce names like O'Brien or O'Hara?
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Robert Bradley
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4829
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 9:02am | IP Logged | 11
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I've always assumed his Martian name was pronouned like you do - for mainly the same reason.
O'Brother. Some people.
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Paulo Pereira
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 24 April 2006
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| Posted: 22 March 2007 at 9:13am | IP Logged | 12
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Not questioning the hyphen, of course, but I can't help but wonder why it was used. Was it to make the 'man' stand out, realizing that in a normal sentence, 'man' would be buried or that it would look like a surnname? Was it to make him stand apart from Superman and Batman? Did it simply look better in the logo? I'm thinking it's the last one myself (conversely, Super-Man and Bat-Man wouldn't look too good). Just musing.
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Topic Closed)
