Rn't they 2 clever?

Yet another pop star is determined that no one will ever confuse her with a child again. Christina Aguilera, whose mission in life appears to be making Britney Spears look tasteful, has a new video.

It appears to have been carefully calibrated for maximum skank. And it's gotten her all the attention she could have wished. The sight of Aguilera rolling around with mud wrestlers, growling that she's wants to get "dirrty," has sparked tsking from everyone from Entertainment Weekly to "Saturday Night Live" – folks hardly renowned for their prudery. Two thoughts popped into my head: Madonna gets banned for driving around in a car, but this goes into heavy rotation? And, what's with the extra "r"?

Aguilera isn't the only one to substitute creative spelling for creativity. Nelly's "It's Getting Hot in Herre" has been exhorting women to take their clothes off since the summer. Unusual spelling has been a fixture in music since Prince announced that he would "die 4 U." Avril Lavigne's "Sk8ter Boi" and e-mail lingo are direct descendants of the purple one. But there's something pitiful, really, about the extra letter syndrome.

The entertainment industry has already blitzed through just about every social and sexual inhibition out there. Network TV is just two words away from retiring George Carlin's "seven little words" skit forever. Sex, violence, naughty language, religious taboos – heck, Madonna churned through all those by the mid-'90s.

All that's left for today's stars to break are the rules of spelling.