whats the literary technique whereby the author purposely misspells something?

Question

Maybe like if i were refering to the garden being so beautiful it was poetree, i know that example i made up is a pun also but i think it displays the technique im talking about. i use it all the time in creative writing just have no name.

writing dialect isn't what i mean, thanks though, what i meant is in writing something to highlight more than one thing at a time e.g in the previous example poetry is spelt poeTree because of the earlier reference to the garden, its a written technique and cant be converted to speech. another example is "i pretended not to know why he wore the headress and asked him 'what is tHat' " note the the capitalisation of H is incorrect but it highlights the fact it is obviously a hat, maybe they're not good examples or maybe there isn't a name for it.

Answer 1

Paronomasia: the use of a word in different senses or the use of words similar in sound to achieve a specific effect, as humor or a dual meaning; punning.

Answer 2

Writing dialect, perhaps?

"For instance, take my friend Carlos. He was born in Mexico but was educated, and now resides, in Arizona. Most readers can relate to that. Provide your reader with the character's history and let the dialogue do the rest. (They will get it, honest.)

For example, you could write this dialogue for Carlos:

"Yes, Meester Smeeth. I weel be happee to go weeth you to thee house."


"Rather than get into a long essay on erroneous use of terms for language (the temptation is great, but I will resist), I will simply state an observation: it's never a good idea to try to convey variation in spoken language in terms of spelling. The best (and maybe the only) way to make this clear is by example. Take a look at this exchange from Gone with the Wind. In this scene, there is an elderly black man named Peter, a slave, and he's upset with Scarlett.

"Dey talked in front of me lak Ah wuz a mule an' couldn' unnerstan' dem—lak Ah wuz a Affikun an' din' know whut dey wuz talkin' 'bout," said Peter, giving a tremendous sniff. "An' dey call me a ****** an' Ah ain' never been call a ****** by no w'ite folks, an' dey call me a ole pet an' say dat ******* ain' ter be trus'ed! Me not ter be trus'ed! Why, w'en de ole Cunnel wuz dyin he say ter me, 'You, Peter! You look affer mah chillun. Te'k keer of young Miss Pittypat,' he say, ' 'cause she ain' got no mo' sense dan a hoppergrass.' An' Ah done tek keer of her good all dese yars."


"Nobody but the Angel Gabriel could have done better," said Scarlett soothingly. "We just couldn't have lived without you."

You'll note that the author attempts to portray Peter's speech by playing with spelling. The idea being, I suppose, that he doesn't speak English as it is written (something nobody does, by the way, unless you happen to be having a conversation with the ghost of somebody who lived in the 15th century). The author feels it is important to make the distinction between Peter's speech and Scarlett's.... why? Because he's a slave, and she's a free white woman of means? Because he is uneducated and she is ... a little more educated? Let's approach this differently, by rewriting the passage:
"They talked in front of me like I was a mule and couldn't understand them -- like I was an African and didn't know what they was talking about," said Peter, giving a tremendous sniff. "And they call me a ****** and I ain't never been call a ****** by no white folks, and they call me a old pet and say that ******* ain't to be trusted! Me not to be trusted! Why, when the old Colonel was dying he say to me, 'You Peter! You look after my children. Take care of young Miss Pittypat,' he say, 'cause she ain't got no more sense than a hoppergrass.' And I done take care of her good all these years."

"Nobody but the Angel Gabriel cudda done bettah" said Scarlett soothingly. "We jus' couldn't have lived without you."
I haven't changed the dialogue one bit -- I've only changed the spelling. In Peter's case all the grammatical points of his speech are maintained, such as the invariant use of third person singular verb forms ('he say'). The distinctive lexical items remain, too (hoppergrass) and the syntax (''I ain't never been call'). If it's important to portray his speech, then this passage does it by means of lexical, grammatical and syntatic variations without resorting to spelling.
I've done to Scarlett's dialogue what the author did to Peter's -- I changed the spelling to approximate how she would have pronounced the words. The result? It's amusing and condescending -- the misspellings seem to indicate something about her intelligence, or her illiteracy.

The lesson here is simple: don't play with spelling unless you have a really good reason. Playing with spelling will almost always work as a trivialization of the character, and that's never good. If it's important to portray dialect, do that in other ways."

Answer 3

I think it is just a simple pun - if you stretch a point, you might consider it a a compound pun or double meaning pun. Check out what I mean at this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pun

Hope this helps.

Answer 4

I believe it may be "Typographical" as that is the subcategory the 'poetry' style falls into, as you said, it is largely 'text-related' and wouldn't blend well into spoke word, whether that is the name given to the actual technique, I'm unsure.