This pie chart of the popularity of various spellings of Hanukkah (the most popular) arrived uncredited in an email.
A little googling took me to a 2005 post from Unbecoming Levity. Turns out that this is no whimsical bit of holiday levity. The post includes a complete dissection of the "core word" and its "variants", resulting in a table of nine columns and 16 rows. I can appreciate the obsessiveness, but it's definitely TMI. Okay, I never knew that French speakers use Hanouka, and it seems that in the effort to not miss any possible spelling, an e-tailer of holiday merchandise keyworded any and all possible spellings including: Chanuko, Kanukkah, Khannuka, Khanuka, Khanukah, Khanukkah, Khannukah, and Xanuka.
Edward Livingston Youmans, Chemical Atlas, Chemistry of Combustion and Illumination, 1855
First candle is tonight. Chave a Chappy one!
