The day after the game, when our “Superbowl” podcast hit the site, I noticed that our editor had chosen to spell it in one word, as opposed to the standard “Super Bowl.” At first I thought nothing of it; I just attributed the variance to his self-professed ignorance of all things football.
But then I noticed the “Superbowl” spelling popping up all over the internets, from Cinematical to the Belfast Telegraph. Even the Wall Street Journal got in on the act.
Fear began to overcome me. If the all-powerful media, with its copy checkers and style guides, was getting it wrong, what, then, of the general public?
Google Trends (an infallible source of knowledge) confirmed my worst fears: as a search term, “Superbowl” has pulled ahead of “Super Bowl.” America officially can’t spell.
(Note: The above charts use Google Trends from the US only to minimize the impact of non-English speakers sullying the results.)
Yes, I realize this is teh inturwebz, where mangling the English language is par for the course. But I had faith that Americans would at least take the time to spell “SUPER BOWL,” that most sacred of all American days, properly. I was wrong.
Readers, what do you think? Is this a new American Spelling Crisis, just another case of language evolving, or somethingmuchworse?