I came across this in last Saturday’s Tolygruff:
As far as I’m aware, pestel was a viable variant spelling in the Middle Ages, but fell into disuse during the 1600s. I might also point out that you can’t actually use the implements in this way: you grind something in a mortar with a pestle, and, yes, the pestle in particular offers possibilities for innuendo and sexual jokes, as, for instance, Francis Beaumont made clear in his play The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1607, summary here).
Anyway, I now offer you an illustrated set of spelling variants (athough it is not necessarily complete; further offerings are, of course, welcome):
The first example contains only five complete words, of which two are incorrectly spelt; while the last is particularly puzzling since a search performed on the site’s search engine for the correctly-spelt term produced 63 results on 16 June 2013, so someone there knows how to spell and/or spell-check.
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