Pink - M!ssundaztood

I've previously gone on record as saying that Pink is a stupid name. For some reason I didn't notice that it was, in fact, 'P!nk' - which is just as well. Let's gloss over that.

I can't gloss over 'M!ssundaztood' though. It's too wilfully quirky to pass without comment. We all know what it's supposed to say and we all blindly accept that sometimes in pop music, you use the wrong letters - because that's the way things are done in pop.

But look at it. Read it. Just try and read what's ACTUALLY there. 'M!ssundaztood'.

For one thing, you can't pronounce an exclamation mark. It's not an audible sound. It just gives instruction as to how the preceding word or words should be produced - as an exclamation.

Secondly, that Z. 'Misunderstood' doesn't have a Z sound. The letter Z tends to indicated a voiced sound; the letter S an unvoiced one. 'Misunderstood' has a voiceless S sound.

Finally, the A that replaces 'er'. The fact that this has been deliberately included at the expense of 'er' means there's a change in sound there. If you say the word, you have to really concentrate to get that bit right, because that neutral 'er' sound's so natural. You'll tend to emphasise it weirdly: 'MisundAstood'.

Put it all together and it's a bloody nightmare. If you ignore the exclamation mark and succeed in making the A sound, you'll probably still do an S instead of a Z because all your focus was on the A sound.

No wonder it's M!ssundaztood.