History Main / OrphanedEtymology

* The 1980 ''Film/FlashGordon'' movie has the War Rocket Ajax as part of Ming's fleet. Ajax, of course, was a famous Greek hero, and Ming has never heard of Earth before the start of the movie.
** Well, if one wants to go that route, then Ming himself is an alien emperor sharing his name with a famous ''Chinese'' imperial dynasty...

* Thanks to ThrowItIn, ''BattlestarGalactica's'' Colonel Tigh exclaims "Jesus!" in a polytheistic society that's never heard of [[spoiler:and predates]] Abrahamic religions.

* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'': As far as it's shown, there's nothing like a benevolent monotheist deity — there's the jerkass god, Truth, and there's Father, who's kind of like {{Satan}}. However, Greed does a SeeYouInHell to his family and Buccaneer references FluffyCloudHeaven. Then again, people are shown to ''believe'' in a variety of religions.

* One of the earlier ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' books references gypsies, which is kind of a problem, since there's no Egypt in the universe to derive that name— the equivalent is called Djelibeybi. So, if there are Roma on the Disc, they should probably be nicknamed Jelibeybs or something like that.

* Deliberately averted in ''TheLordOfTheRings''. Tolkien, as a linguist, did his best to remove and replace modern English words that derived from languages other than English. For example, "pipe weed" is clearly tobacco, but isn't called such because the word "tobacco" comes from a language native to the Caribbean.

* In ''The Ringworld Throne'', a native of {{Ringworld}} refers to how the irritable chieftain of the Grass Giants might "go off like a volcano" if he finds out about something, which is puzzling because Ringworld has no volcanic activity.

* In ''StarFox64'', Falco, rather [[MemeticMutation infamously]], sarcastically calls Fox [=McCloud=] "Einstein" if you shoot him. When a reader of ''NintendoPower'' magazine sent in a letter questioning how could a being from another galaxy know about AlbertEinstein, the editors' response was, "Because [[{{Doylist}} the game's creators are from this galaxy]], Einstein."

* ''{{Exiern}}'', a HighFantasy world with no relation to Earth, much less Japan, apparently has [[http://www.exiern.com/?p=1033 Yaoi Porn]], mentioned by name.

* Ponies in WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic say "Oh my gosh", without an "Oh my god".
*** In the same sense, Rainbow Dash likes to exclaim "For Pete's sake!" once in a while, even though St. Peter is also a Christian figure.

* According to ''DinosaurComics''' [[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2090 summary of the play]], {{Hamlet}} said, "Record scratch! Say WHAAAAAT?" when he found out how his father died.

* One of the earlier ''{{Discworld}}'' books references gypsies, which is kind of a problem, since there's no Egypt in the universe to derive that name— the equivalent is called Djelibeybi. So, if there are Roma on the Disc, they should probably be nicknamed Jelibeybs or something like that.

* Surprisingly, there are actual pre-Christian Roman coins marked with years "BC." Current speculation is that were issued to commemorate a particular battle (in Latin, bellus) against a person or at a place whose name began with "C." The actual pre-Christian Latin dating system was "Ab Urbe Condita" (AUC.), which means "since the founding of the city" (of Rome), though recent history (pre-Empire, at least) was generally rendered as "the year in which [insert name here] and [insert name here] were consuls". For reference, as of June 2012, the current Roman date is 2765 AUC or "the year of the consulship of Obama and Biden" (if you are American - substitute the two highest ranked officials of other countries to taste).

* In MelBrooks' ''HistoryOfTheWorldPartOne'', Comicus says "Jesus" in exasperation during The Last Supper, causing Jesus to answer, "Yes?" assuming that Comicus was addressing him.

* In ''{{StarFox 64}}'', Falco, rather [[MemeticMutation infamously]], sarcastically calls Fox [=McCloud=] "Einstein" if you shoot him. When a reader of ''NintendoPower'' magazine sent in a letter questioning how could a being from another galaxy know about AlbertEinstein, the editors' response was, "Because [[{{Doylist}} the game's creators are from this galaxy]], Einstein."

* Surprisingly, there are actual pre-Christian Roman coins marked with years "BC." Current speculation is that were issued to commemorate a particular battle (in Latin, bellus) against a person or at a place whose name began with "C." The actual pre-Christian Latin dating system was "Ab Urbe Condita" (AUC.), which means "since the founding of the city" (of Rome), though recent history (pre-Empire, at least) was generally rendered as "the year in which [insert name here] and [insert name here] were consuls". For reference, as of June 2012, the current Roman date is 2765 AUC or "the year of the consulship of Obama and Biden" (if you are American - substitute the two highest ranked officials of other countries to taste).

* Surprisingly, there are actual pre-Christian Roman coins marked with years "BC." Current speculation is that were issued to commemorate a particular battle (in Latin, bellus) against a person or at a place whose name began with "C."

* Ponies in MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic say "Oh my gosh", without an "Oh my god".

* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'': As far as it's shown, there's nothing like a benevolent monotheist deity — there's the jerkass god, Truth, and there's Father, who's kind of like {{Satan}}. However, Greed does a SeeYouInHell to his family and Buccaneer references FluffyCloudHeaven. Then again, people are shown to ''believe'' in a variety of religions, so YourMileageMayVary.

* In ''SonicX'', there is a character called 'Black Narcissus' despite his race never having visited Earth and in fact existing in a whole other universe! (also, ''Sonic X''[='s=] earth doesn't appear to have the same countries anyway...)

* ''TheKingkillerChronicle'' plays with this in some weird ways. There are several fictional dead and in-use languages in its world, so a TranslationConvention is assumed. Then you get things like the word 'vintage'. In our world, it comes from Latin by way of French, referring to wine (vin, vino, vinum, etc...), but it's not any more out of place than any other English word in fantasy. However, in the Four Corners there is no OrphanedEtymology, because the word ''vintage'' is derived from the country of ''Vintas'', which happens to produce fine wine.

* In ''DragonQuest'', this is used a lot. It is even {{Lampshaded}} in ''DragonQuestV'', where the phrase "proud as [[PunchAndJudy Punch]]" is used and the Hero's daughter wonders what Punch was proud about.

* According to ''DinosaurComics''' [[http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2090 summary of the play]], {{Hamlet}} said, "Record scratch! Say WHAAAAAT?" when he found out how his father died.

* In ''The Ringworld Throne'', a native of Ringworld refers to how the irritable chieftain of the Grass Giants might "go off like a volcano" if he finds out about something, which is puzzling because Ringworld has no volcanic activity.

* Ponies in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' say "oh my gosh", despite seemingly having no concept of a god, the position already filled by their [[GodEmperor God Enperesses]].

* In the animated ''Animated/TheReturnOfTheKing'', Samwise's response to Gollum's final attack is a very animated '''"Gooood''' help us!"

** And yet, we have the interesting fact that in chapter 1, a dragon is compared not only to a [[InexplicableCulturalTies''train'', but an ''express train'']]:

** And yet, we have the interesting fact that in chapter 1, a dragon is compared not only to a ''train'', but an ''express train'':

* Ponies in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' say "oh my gosh", despite seemingly having no concept of a god, the position already filled by their GodEmperesses.

[[quoteright:200:[[{{xkcd}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/falcon_9566.PNG]]]]

* Ponies in ''MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' say "oh my gosh", despite seemingly having no concept of a god, the position already filled by their GodEmperesses.

* Dates in ''ChronoTrigger'' use [=BC=] and [=AD=], even though Jesus Christ does not appear to exist in the game's universe.