This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Meta Four: Discussion moved from discussion page associated with the old name:
Working Title: Living Impared Not Zombies: From YKTTW
Meta4: Removed for reasons that should be Self Explanatory:
- This editor is not sure, but vaguely remembers Reign of Fire never using the word "dragon".
- Actually it was used several times, making this an aversion.
Creedy: Only one thing worse than a dragon... Americans.
The Kakapo: I'm currently reading I Am Legend and the word vampire IS used. Many times. Keeping the movie example, ditching the original source example.
Ununnilium: This troper vaguely remember hearing George Romero say they weren't originally meant to be zombies, and he didn't realize they were until some time into production.
Don't use "this troper vaguely remembers" examples; get a source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghouls#Movies_and_television, if The Other Wiki counts as a source. The simple fact that they act nothing like zombies but act a bit like ghouls and get called ghouls also backs it up.
Ununnilium: Fair enough; how about this?
- Actually, Optimus Prime tells Sam, "call us Autobots." ...or something like that.
"Or something like that" is the same thing. Plus, I don't see how that contradicts the entry.
Man Without A Body: I just removed the Cloverfield example about how it was set in a world without Godzilla movies. While it's true that Godzilla isn't mentioned in the film, there is a giant monster movie seen playing on a television, and some of the suggestions offered by characters as to the creature's origin are very Godzilla-esque. And the monster looks nothing like Godzilla.
Blork: Removed this example:
- Resident Evil 4 has "los ganados" (Spanish for "livestock") as its zombie fill-ins, although the series has also included more genuine zombies.
Because (a) Los Ganados are significantly different from the standard portrayal of zombies - they use vehicles and weapons and seem to have near-human intelligence. They're more like The Puppet Masters than zombies really (b) Other games in the Resident Evil series do have zombies which are referred to as such and (c) The word "zombie" is mentioned in the game, specifically to point out that Los Ganados are not zombies.
Ununnilium: Thank you for the de-Conversation In The Main Page, Ninjacrat.
Dave Empey:May I suggest changing the title to Not Using the Z Word, thus obviating the need for "notes to Americans"?
Doctor Worm: No, keep it as is. The original line is "Zed Word", so don't change it.
Blork: How can you tell the difference when spoken? "Zed" is the standard British pronunciation of the letter Z.
Andrusi: If the word was "xombie", would this page be called "Not Using The Ecks Word"? No, of course it wouldn't.
Big T: I'm at least going to make a redirect at Not Using the "Z" Word. per our rules on redirecting British/American spellings. I personally think it's kinda silly to make a distinction when both mean exactly the same thing, and I find Doctor Worm's argument to be, uh, incomplete, to say the least. It's a bit US-centric to spell out the letter, as if we Americans are too stupid to realize that Z = zed. It makes sense to spell it out in the quote (to specify how the letter was pronounced in the original) , but I don't see a point in spelling it out in the trope name. Since Doctor Worm appears to be the lone objector, I'll be taking this to YKTTW soon, if no one says anything else here.
Meta Four: I guess nothing came of this? I agree this should be Not Using the "Z" Word.
Citizen: Do it. For Blork's reason, if nothing else.
GastonRabbit: I agree with the current title. The old title would be equivalent to the title "Not Using The Vee Word" if Shaun of the Dead were about vampires instead of zombies. (I'm an American who pronounces the letter as "zee," if that matters.)
arromdee: I deleted the remark about Shaun Of The Dead being the only movie to use the word, since one of the examples mentions that a later Living Dead movie uses the word.
And now that the "ghouls" is mentioned, it suddenly occurred to me: that's where Dungeons and Dragons stole the idea for its ghouls from! D&D ghouls eat human flesh, can kill people and turn them into more ghouls, have low intelligence, and the ability to paralyze victims may be a version of the "zombie bite is deadly" Romero rule.
Raposa: Ghouls are older than that. A lot of AD&D monsters come from old folklore. Ghouls have always been risen corpses that ate flesh.
- For the Aliens, at least, it's somewhat justified in that "alien" is a fairly broad term. The marines in Aliens make it fairly clear they've dealt with extraterrestrials before, so they'd want a more specific term for this specific breed of alien.
- No. Very no. No extraterrestrials are known in the Alien universe prior to the xenomorphs. The marines referred to "illegal aliens"; that is, people who move from country to another without permission. When they had been told that they would be fighting "aliens", this was the first thing that came into their minds.
- For the Aliens, at least, it's somewhat justified in that "alien" is a fairly broad term. The marines in Aliens make it fairly clear they've dealt with extraterrestrials before, so they'd want a more specific term for this specific breed of alien.
I've heard it both ways, so until someone can provide canon evidence, I'm yanking this whole section.
Mr Death: I wrote that first bit. The "illegal aliens" part is just a jab at Vasquez, and at the breakfast table they refer to "Arcturian poontang." Someone mentions to (I think) Hudson that "the one you had was a male" to which he responds "Well, with Arcturians it doesn't matter." All of this pretty clearly implies that they're talking about another species. There's also the derisive way they respond when someone mentions Ripley "saw an alien once," implying that it was, for them, not something of note.
Later:
- Contrary to what you might pick up from the examples on this page, the creature merely needs to be be mythological, not undead. Someone get some dragon/chimera/titan/giant/whatever examples on here already!
Conversation In The Main Page.
Even later:
- Justified in that the team starts to call them 'serpents' when all they have are sumboles depicting sylized Alien heads and tails curled around. Also, "Hunter" is a pretty reasonable alternative name to "Predator", especially when they are only referred to that way by fans, from the movie titles. If this troper remembers correctly, the characters generally just call them "Monsters", "Ghosts/Spirits" or "Ugly Mother Fuckers".
Justifying Edit. (Seriously, "justified" doesn't mean what you think it means.)
Qit el-Remel: Although Robert E. Howard is often credited with coining the term "zuvembie," it's more likely than not that he didn't. (I believe it has its origins in an African language; unfortunately, I couldn't tell you which one.)
Darth Eru: Edited the Star Wars example to remove the rambling about the binary language. It's irrelevant to the point they were making, and inaccurate besides. If a spoken binary language were slow enough you could actually identify the two tone, it would be, well, very inefficient. As
- (then again, the non-humanoid one also speaks 'binary' yet with clearly more than two tones... perhaps an abbreviation for the audio transfer protocol for flip-top garbage cans... "Rubbish Bin-ary"?)
YKTTW leading to rename: rename Not Using The Zed Word: From YKTTW
Paul A: Removed...
- In The Graveyard Book, Silas is never called a vampire (It was Word of God that finally confirmed it). And Miss Lupescu is never called a werewolf, but a Hound of God.
Miss Lupescu definitely doesn't count, since she herself uses the term "werewolf" (albeit only once, when she's telling Bod that the preferred term is "Hound of God").
And I don't think Silas counts, either. The trope is more about authors trying to avoid the Sci Fi Ghetto, which is hardly an issue for a book that unabashedly includes ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, witches, ifrits, etc. The real reason Silas is never called a vampire is that the book is written from Bod's point of view, and everybody who knows what Silas is makes a point of not telling Bod, presumably so he won't freak out.
