Asterisk vs Asterix
Posted: Monday, September 14, 2009
by Ben Morrish
http://alltruism.blogspot.com
Can you tell the difference between a commonly used typographical symbol and a popular French cartoon character?
It seems most people can't, as you almost never hear anyone pronounce, use, or spell, the word asterisk correctly.
An asterisk is a typographical symbol, and it looks like this: *
Asterix looks like this.
Do you see the difference?
One is a small star-shaped punctuation symbol, the other is a cartoon Gaul with a winged helmet.
It isn't just individuals that make this mistake, large companies often do too. Here's a bit from a current NatWest bank competition entry form:
"Fields marked with an asterix are compulsory". Ok, fair enough. But not a single field is marked with the famous mustachioed French man, so it seems they should all be optional, but they're not.
As if this common failure wasn't bad enough, it seems most people are actually guilty of a spectacular double-fail where the mighty asterisk is concerned.
Not only do they think it is called an asterix, they also think that the cartoon character of the "same" name looks like this.
This individual is not an asterisk. He is not an Asterix either. He is called Obelix.
Asterisk (noun) - a star-shaped typographical symbol*
*not to be confused with Asterix**
** Asterix - a cartoon Gaul, often confused with his co-star Obelix***
*** Obelix - a cartoon Gaul, often confused with Asterix (see above)
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Interesting. A good reminder to use proper grammar/spelling. But I can see how it could be confused.Thanks for reading!
Great article. Well done.I must admit this is news to me. Thanks for the insight.Thanks for reading Connor!
Thanks for clearing that up Ben and for the laugh! Always a treat!Thanks for reading Laura! :)
Ben, I thought I was the only person who notices small, but very large errors like this. Thanks for pointing this one out, and sharing valuable information.Thanks for reading Ronyae!
Ben, I've noticed the same thing. It's one of those words that, for some strange reason, are mispronounced more often than they are spoken correctly.Here are a few more than fall into that category:jewelry (as jewlery)nuclear (as nukular, ala former President G.W. Bush)schedule (as sched-u-al, as if it had three syllables)focus (as fokiss)chocolate (as chalklit)Chicago (as Chicawgo)concern (as kincern)Thanks for reading!Nuclear / nukuler and jewelry / jewlery are great examples, getting these wrong does seem to be very common!Add realtor. So many pronounce it ree-lat-tor. It drives me nuts!Good catch, Lorrie! And here's another one: athlete (pronounced as ath-a-lete, as if it had three syllables).I see a 'part 2' coming!
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