Perseus — the one true spelling, and the forms that fail it

The internet spells Perseus more ways than one, and only one of them is the name the sources wrote. This is the register's ruling — canonical, fallback, contested, and false, each in its proper place.

At a Glance

• Canonical form: Perseus
• Original script: Περσεύς
• Pantheon: Greek
• Convention: the restored-stress convention: acute and circumflex for pitch, macrons for vowel quantity, exactly as the sources write
• False forms on record: 0
• Contested forms: none attested
• Series: The Canonical Register, No. 384 of 542

The Canonical Form

The name is attested as Περσεύς. On the evidence, it means "Destroyer, possibly Persian". The canonical transliteration is Perseus.

No diacritics are required here: the canonical form is the exactness of the spelling itself, the form the restored-stress convention: acute and circumflex for pitch, macrons for vowel quantity, exactly as the sources write demands.

Where the Flattened Form Stands

The plain form perseus differs from the canonical Perseus only by convention of display — case, not content. It is acceptable everywhere: in legacy systems, in plain-text citation, in the DNS itself. What is not acceptable is what follows in the register: respellings that change the letters, not just their case.

The Register of False Forms

No circulating form of this name currently qualifies as false under the register's standard — a rare standing. The spelling is short, sturdy, and rarely mangled.

The Contested Forms

No alternate form of this name carries documented scholarly support in the lexicon's record. The convention here — the restored-stress convention: acute and circumflex for pitch, macrons for vowel quantity, exactly as the sources write — produces exactly one defensible transliteration: Perseus. Forms that differ from it are not contested; they are simply wrong.

Why These Marks Exist at All

Greek diacritics are a preservation technology. The acute marks pitch rising; the circumflex marks pitch rising and falling; the macron marks time — how long the vowel is held. The first two were invented by Hellenistic scholars to save the accent as speech flattened; the last matters because Greek meter is built from long and short syllables the way music is built from beats. A transliteration that keeps these is not "decorated" — it is the difference between the name as evidence and the name as guesswork. This register holds to the restored-stress convention because it is the convention that keeps the evidence.

What the Address Bar Allows

IDNA 2008 permits the letters these restorations use — macrons, acutes, underdots, thorn, ogonek, the lot — and the DNS carries them as punycode (`xn--` labels). Two honest constraints remain. First, registrar inventory: the protocol permits a character; the registrar's stock decides whether the exact domain can be bought today. Second, combined marks: forms like Apṓllōn (acute stacked on a macron) are philologically ideal yet effectively untypeable on phones and unsupported across much of the registration system.

That is why the rulebook keeps a fallback hierarchy — full restoration first, then the circumflex when the source carries one, then the macron-only academic standard, then an attested variant, and only as a last resort the plain ASCII form. Every step down the ladder is still defensible; nothing on the ladder is a wrong mark. A fallback is a choice among attested forms. A false form is not on the ladder at all.

The Verdict

The register rules for Perseus, and the ruling is checkable: every mark sourced, every violation stated, every borderline form given its honest standing. perseus carries the name freely — it differs only in display, and the register says so without reservation. Anything else in circulation has its origin and its failure recorded above. That is the whole of the law on this name — and the temple at /perseus/ enforces it.

The docket for this ruling: no false forms on the docket; no contested forms attested.

The Register Continues

Entry 384 of 542 in the Canonical Register. Around it: the temple's founding dispatch, the Restoration File on the marks themselves, the Resonance File on the archetype at work, and the Rulebook behind all of it.

Continue the register — previous entry: Persephonē (read it) · next entry: Perun (read it).

The Canonical Register is written from the same canonical record as the lexicon itself. If a false form is missing from this page, it is because the evidence does not support calling it false — or because we have not seen it yet. Show us, with a citation, and the register will answer.