History Main / PsmithPsyndrome

HollywoodSpelling is the inverse of this trope to some extent. Compare ItIsPronouncedTroPay. Can overlap with PaintingTheMedium or MediumAwareness. See also CapitalLettersAreMagic.

* Tako in Season 1 of ''{{Girls}}'' can "tell when someone thinks it's with a C."

* Tako in Season 1 of ''Girls'' can "tell when someone thinks it's with a C."

* Tako in Season 1 of ''Series/Girls'' can "tell when someone thinks it's with a C."

* Scott ffolliott (played by George Sanders) in Hitchcock's ''Film/ForeignCorrespondent'', whose family dropped the first capital letter following the death of an ancestor at the hands of Henry VIII. Apparently, it's pronounced as a straight 'fuh'.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'', ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST [[http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/narbonic_plus/series.php?view=archive&chapter=50919#strip5 can hear your semicolons.]]

HollywoodSpelling is the inverse of this trope to some extent. Compare ItIsPronouncedTroPay. Can overlap with PaintingTheMedium or MediumAwareness.

*** In RealLife, some people believe Ptolemy's name was pronounced with a bit more of a "click" than a normal T-sound.

* {{Invoked|Trope}} by Alan Davies in the pilot episode of ''Series/{{QI}}'', leading to the above quote. When Alan answers a question by saying '[[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Adolf]]', it turns out that that answer was one of the pre-designated ones that make you lose points, so after Creator/StephenFry reveals the card reading 'Adolph', Alan protests with the page quote. This issue is also brought up in another episode when Sean Lock asks 'can you tell if I'm spelling things wrong when I say them?' and Stephen Fry brings up Literature/{{Psmith}}. On yet another occasion, Phil Jupitus discusses a hypothetical waiter named Steven, with Stephen commenting that he can tell it Phil was saying it with a "v".
* The BBC children's TV series ''Series/{{Chucklevision}}'' had a character who was always referred to his surname as "Smyth, ''pronounced'' Smith".

* In ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' Dr. Robotnik sends a ransom note to Sonic, where he spells kidnapped with a c. Apparently "that's how everyone will spell it," after he takes over the world.

* In ''ComicBook/ArchieComicsSonicTheHedgehog'', [[EvilCounterpart Scourge]] renames his home dimension "Moebius' to differentiate it from Mobius-Prime. WordOfGod states that it's pronounced the same as "Mobius" and points out that [[LampshadeHanging the characters don't seem to get confused despite being unable to see the speech balloons.]]
* [[ComicBook/{{SpiderMan}} Spider-Man]] can tell that his name is being pronounced without the hyphen in Spencer's Amazing Spider-Man issue #10.

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney''

* Franchise/KingdomHearts has the all-powerful χ-blade, spelled with the Greek letter that is sometimes pronounced "kye" but is most frequently pronounced "kee". This results in the name of the weapon being pronounced like the signature Keyblade weapons. Somehow the characters know how to distinguish between the χ-blade and their normal Keyblades.[[note]]Although some characters pronounce it "Key Blade" with an audible gap between the syllables, most of the ''main'' characters fail to do so[[/note]]

* Robert Asprin's ''Literature/MythAdventures'' has neophyte magician Skeeve as the protagonist, with a [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demon]] from the dimension Perv as a mentor. There are few ways to get under Aahz's skin faster than referring to him as Oz the Pervert.

** In another interaction Jeff has with one of his oldest puppets, Peanut, they argue about the pronunciation and spelling of his name; in this instance, Jeff is accused of saying ''his own name'' wrong. Peanut says that his name should be "Jeh-fuh-fuh Dun-ham" because he's using an unnecessary F and Dunham (pronounced "Dunnam") should be pronounced like it's spelled.

*** This is rather irritatingly averted in the audiobook, where usually-reliable narrator Nigel Planer pronounces it Pa-Teppic and Pa-Traci, despite the jokes about others pronouncing that way and being wrong. He also hits the D in Djelibeybi, ruining the pun.
*** In RealLife, some people believe Ptolemy's name was pronounced with a bit more of a "click" than a normal t-sound.

* The protagonist of the Creator/BrandonSanderson short has the magical "knacks" of hearing the spelling and punctuation in spoken words and [[SupernaturallyDeliciousAndNutritious smelling so delicious to dragons that they go insane with the desire to eat him]]. He's rather annoyed at how people only seem to be interested in the second of those knacks.

* In one host segment of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Tom Servo declares that his name has been changed to Tom Sirveaux. Later, he adds an H to his first name... to make it Htom Sirveaux. In response, Crow suggests that Htom hlick him and starts spelling his name with an "e" and a HeavyMetalUmlaut (Cröe). During this sequence, Tom can tell when the others are calling him Servo rather than Sirveaux even though the pronunciation is exactly the same.

* In the same vein, being deaf and being Deaf are two similar, but different things. Being deaf means that you yourself have some degree of hearing loss (not, as commonly assumed, complete hearing loss; the term for that is "profound deafness"). Being Deaf (which is actually referred to by Deaf people as "big-D Deaf") means that you are a member of the Deaf culture; though you yourself are not necessarily deaf, you are closely enough associated with the community that you are considered one of them (think "deaf-friendly").

* The Irish name Seán has maintained [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff a surprising amount of popularity]] across socioeconomic groups in Israel, where having a Western name if you were born there is generally seen as a sign of pretentiousness, at least for boys, but more often than not they spell their ''own'' name in English as ‘Shon’. Also, in the U.S. this name seems to frequently be spelled "Shawn", and in Ireland and Scotland "Shaun"[[note]]English actor Creator/SeanBean's birth name is actually "Shaun", but he chose to be known professionally as "Sean"[[/note]].

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** Inverted when Durkon didn't prepare the Control Winds spell even though he knew they'd be going through the Windy Canyon. [[RuleOfFunny Somehow]], Durkon had thought the title referred to the canyon's "winding" passages. [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0837.html Lampshaded by V in the same strip.]]

* In ''Film/KissMeGuido'', Frankie meets his new roommate Warren's ex-boyfriend Dakota. Dakota's new flame is a theatrical kind of guy who insists that his name is a hand gesture, formed by tapping the first and second fingers of each hand together. He refuses to answer to his actual birth name, or even to introduce himself to new people. (The credits identify him as "Stage Actor.")

* Achmed the Dead Terrorist, one of Creator/JeffDunham's puppets, corrects him when he says its name...the "ch" being pronounced with a back-of-the-throat spitting noise is drawn out as a gag:
-->'''Jeff:''' Well how do you spell it?\\
'''Achmed:''' Uh...A...C...Phlegm...
** 'Course, technically he's just being a bit anal about a common mistake in RealLife -- the sound in question isn't a phoneme in English so we generally pronounce it either ah-med or ak-med. That kind of subtle phonetic distinction in foreign words is probably where the trope comes from in the first place.
*** It's more common in the UK, with a reasonable number of people familiar with the correct pronunciation of "Loch". One character in Creator/IainBanks' novel ''The Crow Road'' is put out by the fact that after decades of apparent inability to pronounce the guttural 'ch' sound in Scottish names, the western television and radio media suddenly demonstrate that they're quite capable of doing so in Arabic names.

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** Pteppic from ''Discworld/{{Pyramids}}'' (a reference to the {{Ancient Egypt}}ian Ptolemaic Dynasty, named after Ptolemy). Going from this, some readers refer to Pratchett as "Pterry".

** During the initiation in ''Discworld/GoingPostal'', Moist thinks to himself that it's amazing that he can hear the {{capital letters|aremagic}} in "Let him don the Boots!", but this is only one of many occasions in ''Discworld'' novels where someone audibly pronounces capital letters or punctuation (for example, quotation marks or ''italics'' for the ''particularly unhinged'').

** When William de Worde first meets Commander Vimes in ''Discworld/TheTruth'', he reflects that he's a person one naturally thinks of as a "Mister" rather than a "Mr."

** Nor should one forget the classic exchange from Wodehouse's ''Meet Mr. Mulliner'':

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