How do you spell certainly the way the Three Stooges pronounce it? It’s an issue vexing readers and copy editors nationwide today, as reviews for the Farrelly brothers’ Three Stooges pour in. (New York’s David Edelstein really liked it.) There appear to be two schools of thought: One spells it “soitenly,” the other “soitainly.”
Entertainment Weekly is in the E camp, as are the Globe and Mail, Rolling Stone, and the Chicago Tribune. On the AI side, there’s the S.F. Gate and the New York Times. The Times, though, changed its tune: The original version of that article spelled the word “cointainly,” which we can all agree is definitely wrong. Vulture’s own copy editor suggested “soytenly,” and another copy editor we asked said “soy-tan-lee.” It’s a tough world out there!
