Comments on: Y Cant Kats Spel Gud?

Question: Y Cant Kats Spel Gud?

L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 11:56:43 -0800

LOLcats teach us that cats can write, they just don't have very good spelling or grammar. The same idea has been used in advertising ("Eat Mor Chikin") and of course Far Side cartoons. Was Gary Larson the father of this concept, or were there other places where it was pervasive before he came along?

There are some comics like Pogo and Krazy Kat where the characters spoke in dialect, but what I'm looking for is a bit different, comedy where animals as animals rather than as anthropomorphic human substitutes can write, but can't spell well.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 12:16:11 -0800

Yeah, I see where you're going with this. The Gary Larson cartoon was, I recall, two dogs standing in anticipation behind an open washing-machine door to which was affixed a sign pointing toward the washer and the words "Kat Fud". I seem to recall similar bits from Tex Avery and old Warner Bros cartoons, but I don't recall poor spelling being a feature....hmm. Lemme think on this and report back.

By: Slarty Bartfast

Slarty Bartfast — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 12:25:58 -0800

To this day, my wife and I still call food "Fud."

By: commander_cool

commander_cool — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 12:45:15 -0800

Before Larson, it was certainly an ancient humorous cliche for children to have poorly spelled signs (with a backwards S, for example), and the Larson humor is a natural extension of that, and LOLCATS of that. But I can't off the top of my head think of intermediate stages between the Our Gang cliche and Larson.

By: Evangeline

Evangeline — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:16:36 -0800

I remember a Kilban cartoon from about 1975 that showed a cat singing, "Love to eat them mousies, mousies what I love to eat/Bite they little heads off, nibble on they tiny feet." Bad grammar, if not bad spelling.

I just found this blog, which discusses why the whole phenomenon is funny in the first place. It may not answer your question exactly, but there are some interesting comments, and it's worth it just for this.

By: vito90

vito90 — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:18:41 -0800

two dogs standing in anticipation behind an open washing-machine door

Only one, hiding in the shadows, and as the cat approached the trap he was saying "oh please oh please".

Here's a Kliban example of good cat spelling, but bad cat grammar.

By: vito90

vito90 — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:19:23 -0800

Oh Evangeline, will u b mine?

By: lalochezia

lalochezia — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:19:43 -0800

Wot no history of Chads?

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:25:35 -0800

Well, I had the gist of it. Wonder what else I've misremembered? (besides most of the 80s and 90s).

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:34:12 -0800

It's an old, old comedy standby. Here's a Straight Dope column on the origins of OK which came from a humorous misspelling meme in the 1840s. Here's the relevant part:

The abbreviation fad began in Boston in the summer of 1838 and spread to New York and New Orleans in 1839. The Boston newspapers began referring satirically to the local swells as OFM, "our first men," and used expressions like NG, "no go," GT, "gone to Texas," and SP, "small potatoes."

Many of the abbreviated expressions were exaggerated misspellings, a stock in trade of the humorists of the day. One predecessor of OK was OW, "oll wright," and there was also KY, "know yuse," KG, "know go," and NS, "nuff said."

Most of these acronyms enjoyed only a brief popularity. But OK was an exception, no doubt because it came in so handy. It first found its way into print in Boston in March of 1839 and soon became widespread among the hipper element.

By: iviken

iviken — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:45:24 -0800

Winnie the Pooh has a "hunny pot". I think the spelling on the pot was "hunny" also in the drawing in the original book, first published 1926.

By: Evangeline

Evangeline — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:46:20 -0800

vito90, I has husband.

By: k8t

k8t — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:54:17 -0800

I also refer to food as "fud" thanks to The Far Side.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:57:09 -0800

Yeha I think Owl from Winnie the Pooh was the first example I knew of this. Owl spells his own name Wol.

"Christopher Robin told me what it said, and then I could."
"Well, I'll tell you what this says, and then you'll be able to."
So Owl wrote . . . and this is what he wrote:

HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA
BTHUTHDY.

Pooh looked on admiringly.

"I'm just saying 'A Happy Birthday'," said Owl carelessly.

By: Johnny Assay

Johnny Assay — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 14:22:01 -0800

And "anyone who can get 'HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY' out of 'Happy Birthday' has got to be a great drug connection, if nothing else."

By: Hey, Cupcake!

Hey, Cupcake! — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 17:40:19 -0800

We also spell cat food "fud"! I don't think I always even notice when I write it that way on the grocery list. (I am human though.)

By: hattifattener

hattifattener — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 18:11:51 -0800

I always attributed the odd grammar of the B. Kliban cat song to the cat's being a folksy folk-singer, not to the cat being a cat.

By: L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg

L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 18:53:47 -0800

Kliban has a rendition of it on his site that has kind of a Delta Blues feel.

By: LizardOfDoom

LizardOfDoom — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 21:21:23 -0800

The characters in Winnie the Pooh are being played with by Christopher Robin. Their spelling is bad because his is bad - he's the one who really wrote the sign, so of course he knows what it was supposed to say- that's part of the humor.

By: davejay

davejay — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:03:06 -0800

Can I just stop by to say that this is a great AskMeFi question, and much better than the typical questions posted here?

By: slightlybewildered

slightlybewildered — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 01:48:46 -0800

Owl lived at The Chestnuts, and old-world residence of
great charm, which was grander than anybody else's, or seemed so to Bear, because it had both a knocker and a bell-pull.

Underneath the knocker there was a notice which said:

PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD.

Underneath the bell-pull there was a notice which said:

PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.

These notices had been written by Christopher Robin,
who was the only one in the forest who could spell; for Owl,wise though he was in many ways, able to read and write and spell his own name WOL, yet somehow went all to pieces over delicate words like MEASLES and BUTTEREDTOAST.

By: mpt

mpt — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 04:59:05 -0800

As Anil Dash points out, it's not that lolcats "don't have very good spelling or grammar". They do have (mostly) consistent spelling and grammar, it's just different from standard English. For example, "OH HAI" is correct Lolcat, while "OH HIE" would be incorrect. And "I EATED IT" is correct Lolcat, while "I EATEN IT" would be incorrect. These are the sort of rules you need to decide on if you translate lolcats into another language.

"Simpler" spelling, pronunciation, or grammar is often attributed to creatures considered less intelligent. Perhaps the most famous example is the language of Jar Jar Binks. (Conversely, people often assume that the language variants spoken by other ethnic groups are "simpler" or "incorrect", even when they aren't.)

As for when it began, Language log has an example from 1922 (well pre-dating Winnie The Pooh):

"Little Tinky-Ting don't need no liver-pad, he don't," said Mrs. Luella Mainprice Jopp, addressing the animal in her arms, "because he was his muzzer's pet, he was."

Granted this is an example of an adult speaking to an animal, but the principle is the same: assuming that the animal has simpler pronunciation and grammar. On the other hand, I doubt that Winnie the Pooh is a relevant example, because it seems implied that all misspellings in the Hundred Acre Wood are the fault of Christopher Robin rather than the animals.

By: Evangeline

Evangeline — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:11:11 -0800

LOLcats pidgin reminds me strangely of Gollum-speak.

By: ObscureReferenceMan

ObscureReferenceMan — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 09:34:05 -0800

Not quite what you're looking for, but I hope it helps...

Archy and Mehitabel, by Don Marquis. Archy was a cockroach who operated a typewriter by jumping on the keys. The result was everything was in lowercase, without punctuation.

By: juv3nal

juv3nal — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:48:56 -0800

y'all are wrong.

[1] on the blue