The E in Clark

By Richard Frantz Jr. [72570.2264@compuserve.com]

Rated: G

Submitted: June 2010

Summary: Sometimes it's better to let little things, like spelling, just slide. So what if Clark's name was supposed to be spelled Clarke; if you don't stress over it, it might work out OK.

Comments appreciated at 72570.2264@compuserve.com

[Disclaimer: Clark Kent, etc, are not my property and are used solely for noncommercial purposes.]

***

Consider Martha Kent, nee Clarke, beloved wife of Jonathan Kent and a basic farmer's wife in Kansas who once dreamed of much more.

She is forever immortalized and remembered by having given her maiden name as her adoptive son's given name...and it was misspelled. This is not because she did not carefully check the paperwork she filled out; she did. It is not because her husband did not carefully check the paperwork; he did. Unfortunately, the paperwork they filled out was not the determiner of the child's name but rather the version made by the county clerk they provided the paperwork to.

It may not even have been the fault of the county clerk, Stefan Green, even though he is remembered (and nearly immortalized) as a terrible speller for having misspelled Clarke Kent's name as Clark Kent. Despite his poor reputation for spelling, penmanship and attention to duty that resulted from this single erroneous act, he is in fact a conscientious civil servant and this may be his only mistake in an entire decade of work.

But while he may bear the blame for this error, there is another group that is perhaps even more at fault. This group is responsible for Stefan's distraction on the day he made the egregious spelling error under discussion. This group, consisting of sixteen people, all of whom Stefan viewed as having a tendency to dress outlandishly, mostly in silver, spent the morning before the spelling error popping out of nowhere, yelling variations of "Check your spelling", "mind your work" and "Where did you go to school, an aquarium?" and then disappearing into thin air.

So disconcerting was this that when Stefan would normally have been carefully transcribing Clarke's name he was looking over his shoulder and writing Clark Kent.

Thus, if anyone must bear the blame for this colossal spelling blunder, it is, in fact, the members of the 24th century Smallville History and Spelling Society.

THE END

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The E in Clark