Line #5 Main/GenderVocabularySlip


1	You're a Japanese (or East Asian) {{Bishonen}} character DisguisedInDrag, ready to infiltrate an all-female society as one of their own.
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3	Splendid!! Your disguise is so flawless that [[AttractiveBentGender you are even more beautiful than the average woman]], so much so that you become a ChickMagnet ([[EvenTheGirlsWantHer to girls AND boys]]), and so [[YamatoNadeshiko refined in manner]] they would never suspect you were ever a man, right?
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5	Unfortunately, being a HotBlooded young man all your life has habitually hard-wired your vocabulary to use the masculine pronoun of ''[[UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns ore]]'' to refer to yourself, something that an everyday girl (who uses ''watashi'', the polite gender-neutral pronoun) or even an upbeat and immature GenkiGirl (who uses ''atashi'', the informal-feminine pronoun, or if extreme ''boku'', a boyish one) would never be caught ''dead'' doing.
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7	Cue a hurried and panicked attempt to correct yourself mid-sentence, which thanks to the RuleOfFunny, almost always keeps the cover from being blown.
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9	Note this is not so much a problem with female characters disguising themselves as boys, as it is not grammatically incorrect for a male to refer to himself as ''watashi'', though amongst his peers he would be considered unmasculine or excessively polite for doing so. However, if she tended to use ''atashi'' all the time, her cover is very likely to be blown.
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11	A grammatical plot complication most commonly found in Japanese {{anime}} gender bending and TwelfthNightAdventure comedies, and occasionally works produced in countries that have gender-specific pronouns or adjectives in their languages (as well as verbs that betray the speaker's gender in first person singular).
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13	If you're speaking about another person, ''that's'' PronounTrouble.
14	----
15	!!Examples:
16	[[foldercontrol]]
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18	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
19	* In ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'', When Keiichi was temporarily caught in a GenderBender by Skuld's pudding, he tried to play himself off as being somebody else when his sister and friends came around looking for him (for the sake of protecting TheMasquerade of the presence of goddesses in his home). He was doing well until he referred to himself with the masculine ''ore'' pronoun, rousing suspicion in his guests.
20	* Invoked in ''Manga/AyakashiTriangle'': Haya first meets Matsuri while pretending to be a [[GenderBender gender-bent]] version of [[PretendingToBeOnesOwnRelative her own brother]]. Once she has the information she came for, Haya ''deliberately'' breaks her cover by ending her sentence with ''-tte kanji'' (a feminine mannerism particularly associated with {{Gyaru Girl}}s). The English translation renders this as a {{Valley Girl}}ish use of LikeIsLikeAComma.
21	* ''Manga/BoysRunTheRiot'': When his classmates start talking about their favorite characters in a drama, Ryo, who is a closeted trans boy, pipes up to agree with Kashiwabara's choice, but he accidentally uses the masculine ''ore'', hastily switching to ''uchi'' (and a male character) when he sees the faces of the others. The English translation adds an extra line to get across the same general idea:
22	-->'''Ryo:''' Uh, I-I mean, if I ''had'' to choose a girl, like ''me'', it'd be Hana...
23	* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', in the Red-Light District arc, disguised as a girl, Zenitsu was knocked out by Daki while infiltrating the Red Light District. The two grateful little girls he protected from her wrath were confused by his reflexive use of the masculine-prefix of ''ore'' to refer to himself when he murmured "What just happened to me" as he awakened from said concussion. He ''barely'' prevents his cover from being blown by the excuse of "I had a strange dream that I was a man" with the feminine-prefix of ''watashi...'' Only to blow said cover wide open again when he when he reacts to their adorable blushing gratitude with a flirtingly delivered ''"It's a man's duty to protect little girls."''
24	* In ''Manga/GirlGotGame'', SweetPollyOliver Kyo accidentally uses ''atashi'' once early on, but immediately corrects herself and uses ''boku'' consistently from then on. [[spoiler:Later, [[TroubledButCute Yura]] says that she should be using ''atashi'' since she's a girl... then claims he was joking.]]
25	* Happens to Psy in an episode of ''Manga/{{Heroman}}'', when Holly forces him and Joey into crossdressing as a disguise. Though, considering these are American teenagers in the middle of California that we're talking about here, there's probably some kind of TranslationConvention at work.
26	* Amawa Hibiki of ''Anime/IMyMeStrawberryEggs'' almost accidentally breaks his cover on the first day of his teaching job, ''in front of the whole school'' through this trope. Rather clunkily translated in the dub with "As a man... uh I mean as a woman."
27	* Natsuru Senou of ''Literature/{{Kampfer}}'' falls into this trope so many times it's a wonder Kaede Sakura, the only girl who does ''not'' know his (identically-named, at that) female persona and him are one and the same, didn't catch on. [[spoiler:She does catch on eventually.]]
28	* Discussed in ''Manga/LoveMeForWhoIAm'', when Mei, a transgender girl who's still struggling to come out of the closet, switches from ''boku'' to ''watashi''.
29	* Shiratori Ryuushi, DoggedNiceGuy and TheChewToy of ''Manga/{{Mahoraba}}'', was dressed up (against his will and while asleep) to look like a ''very'' cute and beautiful blonde. When confronted with Chiyuri, one of his landlady's five personalities who does ''not'' know him, he accidentally uses ''boku'' (polite masculine pronoun) to refer to himself. Subverted in that Chiyuri finds this contrast quite {{Moe}}, and that although unusual for a girl, ''boku'' is [[{{Bokukko}} used by the nicer-tomboys out there as a pronoun]].
30	* Kuranosuke from ''Manga/PrincessJellyfish'' is a habitual crossdresser who generally has no problem passing as female. Still, very often he slips into using ''ore'', much to to the horror of Tsukimi, who is terrified lest her anti-male otaku friends find out his true gender. She usually covers by shouting [[LameRhymeDodge "Ole!"]] and trying to make it seem as if he were talking about flamenco instead.
31	* Referenced to in ''Manga/WanderingSon''. The two UsefulNotes/{{transgender}} protagonists, the female-to-male Yoshino Takasuki and the male-to-female Shuichi Nitori, had a conversation about this. Nitori still uses ''boku'', despite being very feminine and even when dressed as a girl, and Takasuki uses the gender neutral but socially feminine (or formal) ''watashi''. They both decide the pronouns fit them, so they'll keep on using them.
32	[[/folder]]
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34	[[folder:Film — Animated]]
35	* In ''Anime/YourName'', when Mitsuha [[FreakyFridayFlip is inhabiting Taki's body]] for the first time, she accidentally uses the first-person pronoun ''watashi'' while with Taki's classmate. While not strictly a female-only pronoun, in this context (male high school students) it would come off as effeminate. She then tries to correct herself by switching between UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns -- specifically ''watakushi'', ''boku'', and finally ''ore'' -- much to his friends' confusion.
36	** The English dub instead has a bizarre exchange where she calls herself a girl, then a "gal", then finally a guy, and follows this up with [[{{Woolseyism}} "Guys just wanna have fun."]]
37	** The translations for the novelisation and manga have her try various apologies ("'Scuse me", "Pardon me", and "Sorry") before hitting "Whatever", which his friends accept.
38	[[/folder]]
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40	[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
41	* Real world, non-Japan-related example: in ''Film/DancesWithWolves'', they had a consultant for the Sioux language used in the film. Unfortunately, she was female, and apparently they didn't bother to specify which speakers were male. Sioux men talk very differently from women — apparently, the movie comes off to people who speak Sioux as if it'd had Viking berserkers talking like Creator/MontyPython housewives.
42	[[/folder]]
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44	[[folder:Literature]]
45	* The first known instance of this trope is in a ''Literature/LordPeterWimsey'' short story of the 1930s. Lord Peter watches a sexy French girl berating a man. In French, naturally. He's smart enough to figure out that [[spoiler:she is really a man in drag who turns out to be a notorious jewel thief.]] The story is titled "The Article in Question", although the reader does not realize until the end of the story just how accurate a title it is.
46	[[/folder]]
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48	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
49	* ''Series/DoctorWho'': The [[Characters/DoctorWhoThirteenthDoctor Thirteenth Doctor]], as the Doctor's first [[GenderBender female incarnation]], does this a few times as part of a RunningGag. For instance, [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall she calls herself]] the "Marvellous Apparating Man" when appearing in the Alexandria Gallery in 1834 before quickly correcting to "Apparating Lady", and she doesn't realize at first that she's the one being addressed when [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E3Rosa a police officer calls her "Ma'am." ]]
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52	[[folder:Video Games]]
53	* In ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireII'', one possible tenant for your town is a guard who stutters when he says ''ore''. He's not only a woman, as it turns out, [[spoiler:but the princess of Highland in disguise]].
54	[[/folder]]

Context Main / GenderVocabularySlip