History Main / WeWillUseWikiwordsInTheFuture

* [[CanadaEh In Canada]], the government-mandated Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was the first to broadcast radio and television signals in the country; as such, it earned the name "The Mother Corporation," usually reduced to [="The MotherCorp."=]

* The entire UsefulNotes/PlayStation line, as well as various peripherals: the [=DualShock=] (and, with the [=PS5=], the [=DualSense=]), the [=EyeToy=], etc.

* ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'', the collaborative sci-fi WorldBuilding project, brings us "[[GreyGoo Nanodisaster]]," "[[DeusEstMachina Archailects]]", and even "[[UsefulNotes/TheSolarSystem Solsys]]".

* Jasper Fforde of ''Literature/ThursdayNext'' fame acknowledges that he loves using {{Wiki Word}}s.

* Margaret Atwood's ''Literature/OryxAndCrake'' has plenty of respelled {{Wiki Word}}s for just about ''everything'': Corporations ([=AnooYoo=]), products (Happicuppa), new animals (pigoons, rakunks), and the [=CorpSeCorps=] (Corporation security).

* ''Franchise/RoboCop''. The title itself is a [=WikiWord.=] Otherwise mostly averted in this series.

* Scott Westerfield's ''Literature/{{Uglies}}'' series has all sorts of freeze-dried foods and such with WikiWord names.

* ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' and ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' have been using the spelling "[=MegaMan=]" instead. This is an interesting compromise with the eternal misspelling "Megaman". More to the point, the [=BattleChips=] and other technological whatsits of the latter series had WikiWord names too: [=HiCannon=], [=AirShot=], [=NoBeam=], and [=PoisFace=], for example. That last one is an abbreviation for Poison Face, by the way. Apparently we will still have filename length limits in the future also.

** This is a rather popular child's game in Germany. You start with a WikiWord, say, ''WikiWord''. The next player has to find (or make up a plausible) WikiWord that begins with the last part of the first, in this case ''word-counter''. If you have creative players, it can go on for hours.

-->-- '''Tom Servo''', ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': ''Film/OverdrawnAtTheMemoryBank''

* Miami University's athletic teams are known as the [=RedHawks=], rather than the Red Hawks. Note that this is not ''[[NamesTheSame that]]'' UsefulNotes/{{Miami}}; the major university located there is called "University of Miami", and their teams are the Hurricanes. This is the university located in Ohio.

This convention is, of course, perfectly natural in languages where you make new words that way as a matter of course, such as German (but note that German doesn't use [=CamelCase=]) or Japanese (see PortmanteauSeriesNickname). As evidenced by the popularity of terms like {{Blogosphere}} (or arguably {{Blog}}, for that matter) and PodCast, as well as the long list of RealLife examples below, this trope is definitely TruthInTelevision in English as well, though not to the point where the entire language is replaced by such words (yet).

[[folder:Film]]

** This is a rather popular child's game in Germany. You start with a WikiWord, say, ''WikiWord''. The next player has to find (or make up a plausible) WikiWord that begins with the last part of the first,in this case ''word-counter''. If you have creative players, it can go on for hours.

* Margaret Atwood's ''Literature/OryxandCrake'' has plenty of respelled {{Wiki Word}}s for just about ''everything'': Corporations ([=AnooYoo=]), products (Happicuppa), new animals (pigoons, rakunks), and the [=CorpSeCorps=] (Corporation security).

More often than not, the resulting word ends up with [[CamelCase internal capitalization]], aka CamelCase, or [[http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/BiCapitalization.html BiCapitalization]]). This has bled over to the real world, but is currently limited almost entirely to computer and Internet related phenomena. Naturally, it plays hell when trying to talk about them on this website.

* Wiki/TVTropes ''itself'' is having this effect, with more readers and editors of the site [[JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourVocabulary casually referencing trope names]] [=InCamelCase=], which in literary (pop culture) discussions are incredibly more recognized as TV Tropes terms. TV Tropes variations of trope names are also becoming more recognizable: After reading a lot of TV Tropes, what sounds more natural -- the traditional literary term [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathos Bathos]], or {{Narm}}?

* In Japanese, forming words like this is perfectly normal. They are built from combinations of Japanese and [[GratuitousEnglish English]] words. For example, the Japanese word for "PC" is [[Anime/{{Chobits}} "paso-kon",]] an abbreviation of "personal computer" pronounced using standard Japanese phonemes. This extends even to names, especially of celebrities. Music/JimiHendrix, for example, is something like [=JimiHen=]. Specifically, they form words of four moraic units as in ''pa-so-ko-n''= Personal computer, ''ji-mi-he-n''= Jimi Hendrix. Also 'lo-li-ko-n'=[[LoliconAndShotacon Lolita Complex,]] ''ko-n-bi-ni''= Convenience Store, or ''i-ra-su-to''= Illustration.

* Some apparently important company is named [=PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)=]. Gah. Note that the name is not [=PriceWaterhouseCoopers=] or Pricewaterhousecoopers but [=PricewaterhouseCoopers=].
** That one almost makes sense: it was founded by the merger of apparently important company Price Waterhouse with apparently important company Coopers & Lybrand, and the "waterhouse" is in lowercase presumably to indicate that it wasn't a separate firm at the time of the merger.
** [=PwC=] is the world's largest professional services firm; their main businesses are financial statement auditing, tax, and consulting. They're best known to the public as the people who ensure that Academy Award votes are counted accurately. The accounting industry is packed with examples of [=WikiWords=] or LongList titles, as accounting firms often grow more through acquisition than by simply picking up customers. Consider the naming history of a slightly smaller audit/tax/advisory firm, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KMG_Group#Early_years_and_mergers KPMG]]. KPMG spun off its consulting business in the wake of Enron's collapse, and the new firm chose the name [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BearingPoint BearingPoint]]. Unlike many examples shown here, this was not a branding decision done to appease the owners of an assimilated company; this was a conscious decision.
** In the realm of 'might-have-been': TWA once considered buying and merging in Texas Air.

* In ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' (besides the title), [[TheReptilians the Race]]'s names for certain things fit the trope. For example, an admiral is called "fleetlord", while a ship captain is a "shiplord"; a tank is a "landcruiser", and a fighter jet is a "killercraft".

-->'''King Fan Club #5 "G"''': Man, you always worhar! "Worhar" is short for "work hard." And since you're a worhar king, you need to chill! I'm rootin' for ya! [[Videogame/WorldofWarcraft Loktar!]] [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar Bewbies!]] Lates!

* Scott Westerfield's ''Literature/{{Uglies}}'' series has all sorts of freeze-dried foods and such with WikiWord names; particularly notable was [=SpagBol=]. 'Spaghetti bolognese' was apparently too hard for the residents of a {{dystopia}} to say. It's a standard UK colloquialism.

* Battleship and destroyer are short for "line-of-battle ship" and "torpedo boat destroyer," qualifying as wiki words.

* The [=EyeToy=].
* The entire UsefulNotes/PlayStation line.

* For Apple, the iPad, iPhone, iMac, and iPod. It originally meant "Internet-Ready", referring to the original iMac ("Internet-Ready Mac") being pre-installed with a free internet suite and phone modem, and being pre-configured to use a phone-line for internet access. The idea was that you could take it out the box, connect it to your phone line, and immediately access the internet. This lead to other iThings like the (also internet-ready) iBook or iTunes, and by the time Apple was to release a music player, the 'i' prefix had already come to mean 'Concerning apple products or services' rather than 'Internet Ready'.

* Hazmat, for "''haz''ardous ''mat''erials" (at least in the US)

* Also in Britain, the sort of special advisors to Prime Ministers who seem to take on more power than actual Cabinet members, like Alastair [=MacIntyre=] and Dominic Cummings, have been called "spads"[[note]]An interesting term since the other distinctly British use of "spad" is as an acronym in rail transport, usually used in crash reports, meaning "signal passed at danger", i.e. the train disregarded a red light it should have stopped at.[[/note]], an interesting example where a multisyllabic two-word term has become a monosyllabic one through this trope.

* Manhattan has a few neighborhoods that have gotten named this way: "[=SoHo=]", from ''So''uth of ''Ho''uston Street, "Nolita", from ''No''rth of ''Lit''tle ''Ita''ly and most famously Tribeca, from ''Tri''angle ''Be''low ''Ca''nal Street.

** And at one point, the now-defunct American Stock Exchange was the "Amex". Nowadays that's American Express.

* In Japanese, forming words like this is perfectly normal. They are built from combinations of Japanese and [[GratuitousEnglish English]] words. For example, the Japanese word for "PC" is [[Anime/{{Chobits}} "paso-kon"]], an abbreviation of "personal computer" pronounced using standard Japanese phonemes. This extends even to names, especially of celebrities. Music/JimiHendrix, for example, is something like [=JimiHen=]. Specifically, they form words of four moraic units as in ''pa-so-ko-n''=Personal computer, ''ji-mi-he-n''=Jimi Hendrix. Also 'lo-li-ko-n'=[[LoliconAndShotacon Lolita Complex]], ''ko-n-bi-ni''=Convenience Store, or ''i-ra-su-to''=Illustration.

* Can also happen in German - German grammar allows one to stick any two nouns together to form a new word, and there are quite a few words that have been "imported" from other languages. The result: stuff like "Computerfabrik", "Spitzenperformance" or "Worst-Case-Analyse". Sometimes two compound words even get stuck together to form a ''huge'' word.
** Or pretty much any agglumerative language - that's how new words are lexicalized in the first place in these tongues and it's perfectly normal (at least it wouldn't seem "SciFi"). Kinda how some languages are said to have millions of words for "snow" that turn out to be adjective + snow stuck together.
** German also has lots of prefixes that can be added to change the meaning of things, including the above words created by sticking two nouns together. Mark Twain wrote a rather fantastic essay about this, and some of the other 'unusual' aspects of the language. There's a copy of it [[http://www.kombu.de/twain-2.htm here]], for anyone who's curious.
** This is a rather popular child's game in Germany. You start with a WikiWord, say, ''WikiWord''. The next player has to find (or make up a plausible) WikiWord that begins with the last part of the first,in this case ''word-counter''. If you have good or very creative players it can go on for hours.

** The EarthGov of the 28th century seems to have kept the tradition alive, with vaguely Orwellian terms like "goodfacts" (i.e. propaganda), as opposed to "realfacts."

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 4th Edition briefly headed in this direction with its use of compound names for classes and monsters (most recently the Shardmind race and the Battlemind and Runepriest classes from PHB3), much to the annoyance of those who prefer simpler and more resonant naming conventions. The battlemind is known as a "fightbrain" on [=RPGnet=].

** Intelligence services use this for various source of information. For example: HumInt (Human Intelligence), SigInt (Signals Intelligence), MASInt (Measurement and Signature Intelligence).

* Also in Britain, the sort of special advisors to Prime Ministers who seem to take on more power than actual Cabinet members, like Alastair MacIntyre and Dominic Cummings, have been called "spads"[[note]]An interesting term since the other distinctly British use of "spad" is as an acronym in rail transport, usually used in crash reports, meaning "signal passed at danger", i.e. the train disregarded a red light it should have stopped at.[[/note]], an interesting example where a multisyllabic two-word term has become a monosyllabic one through this trope.

* Manhattan has a few neighborhoods that have gotten named this way: "SoHo", from ''So''uth of ''Ho''uston Street, "Nolita", from ''No''rth of ''Lit''tle ''Ita''ly and most famously Tribeca, from ''Tri''angle ''Be''low ''Ca''nal Street.