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Granddad: Excuse me, Slickback... A Pimp Named Slickback: No, no. It's A Pimp Named Slickback. Granddad: That's what I said! Slickback! A Pimp Named Slickback: No, no! It's A Pimp Named Slickback! It's like " A Tribe Called Quest"; you say the whole thing! A Pimp Named Slickback! Granddad: Can't I just call you Slickback for short? A Pimp Named Slickback: NO, nigga! It's A Pimp Named Slickback! Granddad: Cristal, who is this person? A Pimp Named Slickback: Nigga, are you deaf? I'm A Pimp Named Slickback! Say it with me now!! — The Boondocks, "Guess Hoes Coming To Dinner"
A character constantly corrects a term used in their introduction or speech that otherwise refers to them, but seems to never stop anyone using it. Sometimes this is because they could be called something people see as unflattering or a bad choice of words.
Occasionally this extends into a species joke, where an alien or funny animal corrects others about some stereotypical aspect. Can also be done with a person whose name has an unusual pronunciation — see It Is Pronounced Tro-PAY.
Compare with They Call Me Mister Tibbs and Do Not Call Me Paul; compare and contrast with The European Carry All. Spell My Name With A The, It Is Pronounced Tro PAY and I Am Big Boned are specific sub-tropes of this. See also She Is Not My Girlfriend. For the fandom equivalent, see Gannon Banned. Advertisements say they Cant Believe Its Not Tropey!
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Kotomi from CLANNAD insists on being adressed with "Kotomi-chan" and won't even register other forms of adress. This makes most people somewhat uncomfortable, as it is a rather intimate form of adress.
- A Running Gag in Inu Yasha is that every mammalian demon (a weasel, a fox, a river otter) is referred to by someone as a tanuki.
- Suzuka from Yu Yu Hakusho somewhat fits this trope during his first appearance in the Dark Tournament. He insists on being called "The Beautiful Suzuka" and promises that anyone who doesn't refer to him as such will not live to repeat their mistake. When the foxgirl announcer Koto just calls him Suzuka, he shows his annoyance by hurling a razor sharp playing card at her head. She manages to duck as the card skewers the demon sitting behind her, scaring her enough to use Suzuka's title and constantly compliment him and his techniques during the match. And even once a whole two sagas later.
- "No! I'm not gonna help you unless you call me Little Washu!" ("Washu-chan" in the Japanese version).
- Lina Inverse insists on referring to Philionel El Di Saillune as the "First Royal Successor". Don't call him "Prince" in front of her. Just don't.
- In the novels, this is partly because, thanks to some succession issues with Saillune's royal family, this is his actual title. He really isn't a prince, even if he is the current ruler's son.
- Not to mention the number of people Lina has to, ahem, correct about the various titles she's usually introduced with. Generally by the assembly of local banditry.
- Butch from the Pokemon anime series constantly corrects those who get his name wrong. Everyone has mistaken his name for either "Biff", "Bill", "Bob", "Hutch", "Butcher", "Patch", "Botch" or "Chuck". Whenever his partner, Cassidy, gets it right, he accidentally corrects her with the wrong name.
- "Carul-san..." "Carmen, Carmen, Carmen 99!"
- Bleach: "It's CAPTAIN Hitsugaya!"
- Manjyoume from Yu-Gi-Oh GX has to constantly correct anyone who doesn't use honorifics when saying his name with "Manjyoume san da!" (translation: "That's Mr. Manjyoume to you!"). Unfortunately for him, everyone mistakes this as "Manjyoume sandaa", instead ("sandaa" being the Japanese pronunciation to the English world "thunder"). While he hasn't stopped with the correcting, he has embraced the mistake as part of his personal motto. In the dub, Manjyoume's counterpart Chazz Princeton does the same thing, insisting everyone call him "The Chazz".
- Sealand of Axis Powers Hetalia says, "Call me Sea-kun!" He also once requested, bizarrely enough, to be called "senpai."
- Hisa Takei of Saki insists that she is the president, not of the student council, but the student congress.
- Albireo Imma of Mahou Sensei Negima liked his tournament alias of
Colonel Ku:Nel Sanders so much that he requests everyone to call him by that name and will pretend to ignore you if you call him by his original name.
- By the way, did you know that Horo is wise?
- Naruto: Sasuke corrects Deidara that his jutsu is called "Chidori" not "Raikiri" (which is just a nickname)
- Van Dread: Gascogne.
- In Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Zafira insists that Arf refer to him as a "guardian beast" rather than as a familiar.
- In One Piece, Chopper is frequently mistaken for other animals when in other forms, such as a tanuki in his Brain Point and a gorilla in his Heavy Point, and he has to insist that he's a reindeer. Similarly, Franky insists that Brook call the Thousand Sunny by its name instead of "Lion-chan."
- Kei and Yuri's codename is "LOVELY ANGELS". You jerk.
Comics
- In Top Ten, vampires in Neopolis prefer not to say the zed word; One, when called a vampire, insists he's "a Hungarian-American with an inherited medical condition."
- Robots, who are victims of Fantastic Racism, tend to insist on being acknowledged as "Ferro-Americans" or "Post-Organics."
- The Sandman brings us Fun-Land. "Not FUN! FUN-LAND!" This being The Sandman, it's actually pretty terrifying.
- Well, when the guy in question is a child-murdering sociopath hiding behind the mask of an amiable, slightly goofy fat guy who stalks his "prey" in amusement parks.
- Death's Head, of the Marvel universe (and occasionally appearing in the Transformers comic when Marvel had the license), was a freelance peacekeeping agent. Some call him bounty hunter, but never twice, yes?
- Runaways: Molly's code-name is Princess Powerful!
- Spider-Man has been known to correct villains who call him an insect, pointing out that spiders are technically arachnids.
- Ghost Rider antagonist and Legacy Character "The All-New Orb" literally always refers to himself with that full phrase. Others just call him "Orb" or "The Orb", but he's been very clear what he'd prefer to be known as.
Film
Literature
- The Discworld book series had Mort, who, whatever the topic of conversation, would reflexively correct anyone who called him "boy" or "you" by giving his name. In the final duel this became a Berserk Button.
- Speaking of Discworld, don't forget the Librarian, an orangutan who viciously beats anyone who refers to him as a "monkey".
- Violently and educationally beats, because technically he isn't a monkey; he's an ape.
- Also, from Making Money, Unseen University has a Department of Postmortem Communications, who summon the spirits of dead people to talk to them. They are not "necromancers." Necromancy, in fact, is strictly forbidden at Unseen University!
- Aahz, of Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures books, is a demon from the dimension called Perv, and quite firm about the correct term for his race being "Pervect", not "Pervert", the latter being a racial slur.
- In the comic book adaptation, Aahz's apprentice Skeeve correctly addresses another Pervect, who starts to scream at him... then stops, astonished to realize someone actually got it right, and asks politely what he can do for Skeeve.
- Belgian Hercule Poirot objects to being called French — which is an error of fact, not of terminology, but produces similar comic moments.
- Parodied by his Expy Milo Perrier in the movie Murder By Death, where he indignantly responds to someone calling him "Frenchie" with "I'm not a Frenchie! I'm a Belgie!"
- There was also a "I am not Belgian, I am FRENCH!" moment, followed immediately by "My apologies. Correcting people has become a reflex."
- Hermione Granger of Harry Potter gets rather snippy when people refer to her "Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare" by its acronym.
- The name is even better in Dutch: "Stichting Huiself voor Inburgering en Tolerantie" (society house-elf for naturalizing and tolerance).
- In the Redwall books by Brian Jacques, the heroic and generally weapon-ready hares absolutely cannot stand being referred to as rabbits. (Rabbits in the Redwall world tend to be quiet and passive.)
- As with the Poirot article above, in the CERUB series of books there is a Ukrainian character named Yosyp Kazakhov. Call him Russian, and you'll get an earful and a half. (If you're lucky.)
- In a bit of an inversion, when Bilbo Baggins balks at getting hired as a "burglar" in The Hobbit, the dwarves miss the point and tell him he can be an "expert treasure hunter" instead.
- In The Thrawn Trilogy, Thrawn refuses to acknowledge the New Republic as anything other than "The Rebellion", although the trilogy took place five years after Return Of The Jedi, by which point
Imperial Center Coruscant itself had been retaken.
- This is a case where changing the name of a thing changes the thing itself. The New Republic is a foreign power. The Rebellion is an uprising of Imperial subjects. In the same way, Abraham Lincoln never called the states in secession from the Union by the name "Confederate States of America".
- The Hand of Thrawn Duology has Grodin Tierce, part of the triumvirate who are collectively endeavoring to make it look like Thrawn has returned, similarly talk about The Rebellion, despite this taking place ten years after Thrawn's death, when the New Republic has basically taken over. This is one of many little bits of Foreshadowing, because Tierce is a clone who was specifically grown as an attempt to make someone who thought like Thrawn.
- When the Old Republic became The Empire, the capital planet Coruscant was renamed "Imperial Center"; though a number of characters, even Imperials, complain about this, some use the term exclusively and don't like hearing the old word. When the New Republic takes the planet back, they change the name. They try to change the name of the Imperial Palace, where the seat of government had been ever since the Senate building had been torn down, but none of their alternate names stick.
- In the final book of A Series of Unfortunate Events, Ishmael always says "call me Ish", but noone ever does.
- In Everworld, Sobek insists on being addressed as "Sobek, god of the crocodiles of the Nile, called Rager, son of Seth and his consort Neith, nurse of the crocodiles". As he's a living god with thousands of crocodiles at his command, no one disputes it.
- In the Wild Cards books, Tom Tudburry hates hit when people call him "The Turtle." He's the Great and Powerful Turtle, dog gone it!
Live Action TV
- Ray J. Johnson, a character on The Redd Foxx Show, launched into his signature spiel (You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay) whenever addressed as "Mr. Johnson".
- In Scrubs there is an employee who is noted for resembling Snoop Dogg who is very insistent on making sure everyone knows his title, making sure nobody calls him Snoop Dogg Intern when he becomes Snoop Dogg Attending and so on.
- Although he wishes that, just once, someone would just call him Ronald.
- In The Office, Dwight Schrute and his English counterpart Gareth Keenan constantly refer to themselves as "Assistant Regional Manager," prompting nearby employees to insist, "Assistant to the Regional Manager," a much less impressive and largely meaningless title.
- There's also Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration. He's even introduced this way by the pastor at his wedding.
- Are You Afraid of the Dark? "It's Vink! with a V- V- V-! and I am not a nutbag!" also, "It's Sardň — no 'mister', accent on the 'dň'."
- In a fairly annoying example from one of Deep Space Nine's Ferengi episodes, the good guy Ferengi repeatedly have to correct people who refer to "Grand Nagus Brunt" by insisting that they call him "Acting Grand Nagus Brunt".
- A better example on the earlier Star Trek the Next Generation in Doctor Pulaski's first episode she calls Data "Data", with a short A (dah-tah). He corrects her, as it is "Data" with a long A (day-tah). She asks what the difference is. He replies "One is my name, the other is not."
- Which is a Development Gag, since in the original series bible, the "correct" pronunciation was the other way around.
- Brilliant cop Lester Freamon of The Wire is very insistent about the amount of time he spent banished in the pawn shop unit — thirteen years and four months.
- Fabio Viviani from Top Chef season 5. After a judge called his filet mignon sandwich "essentially a cheesesteak", he went on to declare, "It's a filet mignon sandwich. Not a cheesesteak."
- Memetic mutation has done this to Dr. K of Power Rangers RPM. It's Bio-Armor, not spandex!
- Not just memetic mutation, as it's cropped up again a few episodes after the first incident. Schoolkids on a field trip get a Q&A session with the Rangers, and K has to be restrained when the S-word comes up.
- ILLUSIONS, Michael.
- A trick is something a whore does for money...
- A working girl, she turns illusions for money in the night... tricks.
- One of the first things Ned in the pilot of Pushing Daisies says is that the people he brings back to life are not zombies or undead, merely "alive again".
- In the Doctor Who 2007 Christmas special, Bannakaffalatta, a red-skinned, spikey alien cyborg who falls in love with the female quasi-lead and ends up killing himself for the sake of the mission, causing the quasi-lead to do the same, takes it personally when the Doctor tries to call him by a variety of nicknames.
- Aaron Sorkin is a fan with "adult film actress" instead of "porn star" on Sports Night, and "call girl" instead of "prostitute" on The West Wing.
Mythology
- In one folk tale, it's said that the Chinese used to give extravagant names to their firstborn sons but very plain names to their younger children. So when Chang, the second-born, sees his brother, Tikki-tikki-tembo-no-say-rembo (IIRC), fall into the well, he tries to tell his mother... only to be repeatedly told to give his brother the proper respect by saying his name properly. In the aftermath (the kid was alive, but suffered a terrible cold), the Chinese culture changed to where even firstborns had short, sensible names... like Chang.
- "Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo" was the first child's name, according to The Other Wiki. While claimed to be Chinese, about the only thing anybody agrees on about the tale's origins is the impossibility of it being Chinese.
- In the original version of the story, Tikki-Tikki-Tembo died because his brother kept running out of breath trying to say the absurdly long name and had to start all over again each time he tried to say it.
- It may originate from the Japanese folktale/comedy piece of Jugemu
 .
- The story has been retold numerous times, both by word of mouth and in published form, and has acquired a large number of variations because of it. Versions differ on whether the child lives or dies, and the specific manner in which his rescue is delayed varies as well (though it is always due to multiple repetitions of the very long name). The various names attributed to the unfortunate kid include Nikki Nikki Tembo No So Rembo Oo Ma Moochi Gamma Gamma Goochi, Sticky Sticky Stumbo Nos E Rumbo E Pro Pennyo Hara Bara Brisko Nicky Prom Po Nish No Menyo Dumbricko, and Ikky Bikky Stumbo Nozo Rumbo Addy Baddy Basco Tana Rama Tasco, among others.
Theater
- In the musical version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Englishman Sir Percy Blakeney (a.k.a. the Scarlet Pimpernel) continually refers to his rival, the Frenchman Chauvelin (Shoo-VLAN), as "Mr. Shovelin".
- An old Vaudeville joke involves a man who thinks he's found his long-lost friend. The straight man says nothing except "I'm not Rappaport", thereby giving the joke its name. It also inspired a successful play in The Eighties as well as a film starring Walter Mathau.
Joker: Hey, Rappaport! I haven't seen you in ages. How have you been?
Straight man: I'm not Rappaport.
Joker: Rappaport, what happened to you? You used to be a short fat guy, and now you're a tall skinny guy.
Straight man: I'm not Rappaport.
Joker: Rappaport, you used to be a young guy with a beard, and now you're an old guy with a mustache.
Straight man: I'm not Rappaport.
Joker: Rappaport, how has this happened? You used to be a cowardly little white guy, and now you're a big imposing black guy.
Straight man: I'm not Rappaport.
Joker: And you changed your name, too!
- This act was then turned on its head by French Canadian absurdist comedy duo Les Denis Drolet, where one of the two would insist the other is named "Jacques" despite the other's protestations that his name is "Jean", and they would argue back and forth like this for a couple minutes until "Jean" finally realizes he'd been mistaken and his name was indeed "Jacques".
Video Games
- Locke of Final Fantasy VI. He's not a thief, he's a treasure hunter.
- And he'll rip your lungs out for saying otherwise! What makes this one line particularly funny is that the SNES translation is so aggressively kid-friendly that it refuses to acknowledge the existence of pubs and the word 'death' and its variants... but threatening to pull out somebody's internal organs is A-OK?
- He's much less violent in the GBA remake. He'll just beat the crap out of you.
- In Super Robot Wars Original Generation, Dr. Marion Radom flat out refuses to call Kyōsuke and Excellen's machines the Alteisen and Weissritter, instead using their original, production-model names — the Gespenst Mk. III and Gespenst Mk. II Custom, respectively.
- Until OG2, anyway, when she's impressed enough by their performance to call them by their codenames. Her selective hearing still keeps Excellen from getting a proper upgrade for "Weissy," though.
- Tales of the Abyss:
Jade: Why if it isn't Dist the Runny!
Dist: The Rose! R-O-S-E, rose! Dist the Rose!
Anise: You mean, Dist the Reaper.
Dist: Silence! I refuse to accept that name! It's Rose! ROSE!
- Professor Layton vehemently emphasizes that he is not, in fact, a detective. This doesn't stop people from constantly thinking that's the case, though.
- Dex from Saints Row wishes you to know that it's "The Carnales" not "The Los Carnales". Possibly doubles as a Take That against Crackdown, which featured The Los Muertos.
- Ashe from Final Fantasy XII, leader of the
La Insurgence La Resistance.
- In Fallout 2, the citizens of Vault City keep a slave labor force, but insist upon calling them "Servants," and make a habit of expelling those who say otherwise.
- Similarly, in the Fallout 3 DLC Pack The Pitt, The leader of the Pitt Raiders, Ashur, insists that his subordinates refer to the slave populace as "workers", although, to be fair, he fully intends to release them once he and his wife find a cure for the rampant mutation present in what remains of Pittsburgh.
- Also in 3:
Butch: I'm a barber, not a hairdresser! There's a difference!
- An example from Gabriel Knight 2: "I do not know what it's like where you're from, Mr. Knight, but people refer to me as Herr Doktor Klingmann here."
- In the fourth generation of Pokémon games, the Pastoria City Gym Leader, Wake, insists on being called "Crasher Wake".
- The Legend of Zelda - Phantom Hourglass: It is implied that Tetra got a lot of those after it was revealed that her real name is Princess Zelda., but in the game itself it only happens in one short exchange, where she told Niko to keep calling her "Tetra" instead of the other name. Tetra's level of anger about this seems to imply that it has happened before and started to annoy her.
- It's Mr. Game & Watch. Not Mr. Game and Watch. If you type Mr. Game and Watch into Google, you don't get anything. Therefore, it's Game & Watch.
- Tales of Symphonia:
"It's Magnius from the eastern ranch!"
"That's LORD Magnius, vermin!"
- And of course, the sequel has the Nazdrovie / Light-Frog debate between Centurion Tenebrae and the main cast.
- In Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Saix insists that the other Organization members refer to Xion as "it" rather than "she," showing his contempt for her as a replica Nobody.
Web Comics
- The webcomic Magellan has, among many supers, one called "The Man Who Can". He's constantly reminding people it's "THE Man Who Can", not just "Man Who Can" or something shorter.
- Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer!, from Girl Genius. It gets so ingrained that Krosk once does the correction reflexively without Othar present (before stopping halfway and noticing to his horror what he'd just done).
Web Original
- Larry Damone, in the Whateley Universe, is a mutant with the codename "The Man Called Vengeance". He can't get people to stop calling him just "Vengeance". His team leader Fantastico calls him "Vengie", which really bugs him.
- Tasakeru: The intelligent mammal species are called "SENTIENTS". Not "anthros", not "animals", and NOT "furries"!
- Old Man from the Legend of Niel: "You may call me... 'Old Man'"
Western Animation
- Rockos Modern Life made a running joke of Heffer, a steer, correcting anyone (usually his father) who calls him a "cow".
- Mighty Max's Obi Wan Virgil was a bird-like humanoid who would correct anyone who called him a "chicken" by saying "Fowl, actually."
- Verne the turtle in Over the Hedge corrects those who call him an amphibian instead of a reptile.
- Some of the myriad Looney Tunes shorts featured an angry chicken-hawk who would violently react whenever anyone called him otherwise. Not one of The Oldest Ones In The Book, perhaps, but definitely one of the older Ones.
- The Boondocks features recurring character A Pimp Named Slickback, who gets flustered whenever people refer to him simply as Slickback and offers the correction printed at the top of this page.
- Truly a fine example of the trope, A Pimp Named Slickback actually makes this correction a part of his introduction in one episode: "Please say the entire thing. Yes, that includes the 'A Pimp Named' part. Yes, every time."
- In an episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle, a Southern Gentleman insists that people call The American Civil War "The War Between The States". This sort of bickering over historical and political terminology is very much Truth In Television.
- Actually he gets peeved over any word or phrase that even sounds like "Civil". When the next episode was going to be titled "Civil Defense", he angrily blustered, "War — I say — War between the States Defense!"
- He relents after the war is reenacted (on the football field) and the South wins.
- In an episode of The Flintstones, Fred is employed as an apartment complex's janitor. "Not janitor! Resident stationary engineer!"
- The Angry Scientist from Sheep in the Big City would get especially angry if anyone referred to him as a Mad Scientist.
- In Code Lyoko, when Odd Della Robia is called "scrawny" or "skinny", he always corrects them by saying he's "svelte".
- In Johnny Test, Mad Scientist Eugene insists on being called "Bling-Bling Boy", due to the amount of jewelry he wears.
- Fang from Dave the Barbarian: "Not a monkey!"
- The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: Sittin' muscle!
- Wade bemoans Kim Possible for calling the genre "Sci-Fi" when it is in fact "Science Fiction".
- "That's DOCTOR Drakken you dolt!"
- "It's a housecoat!"
- The pilot of Avatar the Last Airbender had both Katara and Aang insist that what they did wasn't magic, it was bending. Thankfully, nobody ever tried to sell that distinction again.
- And it's not a ponytail, it is a Warrior's wolftail, thank you very much.
- "That's a harp... and that's a dress." "''ROBE.''"
- Memetically, used in the Super Mario World cartoon episode... well, you know.
Luigi: That's Mama Luigi to you, Mario!
Real Life
- Different sides of political issues usually have their own terminology that reflects and supports their underlying assumptions. This is known as "framing the debate."
- Richard M. Stallman. GNU/Linux. 'Nuff said.
- For those who ain't tech savvy: Stallman refers to "Linux," the free operating system preferred by Playful Hackers everywhere, as "GNU/Linux." He wants to differentiate the kernel, the core of the operating system, from the operating system as a whole; he and the Free Software Foundation he founded claim that they wrote a lot of the latter, and deserve some credit.
- Recently also suggested that people might like to start talking about GNU/BSD, although not as insistent on it.
- *BSD has its own programs, it uses just a little bit of GNU programs. There is "GNU/NetBSD" and "GNU/kFreeBSD" which are the GNU system with the respective *BSD kernels.
- Stallman also stresses the difference between "freeware", that is, software that costs $0.00 but still has some restrictions on its use, and "free software", which can be used without absolutely no restrictions and is usually, but not necessarily, free of cost. He refers to the former as "free as in beer" and the latter as "free as in speech."
- One wonders how he feels about Free Beer, which is free as in speech but not free as in beer.
- Part of the reason for the open source movement, which is a development model with restrictions (or a lack thereof) similar (though not always exactly the same) to those used for what the Free Software Foundation refers to as free software, was the potential confusion between "free as in beer" and "free as in speech" (among other reasons). Incidentally, Stallman prefers that the term "free software" be used over "open source."
- Possibly referenced in Questionable Content #1105.
- Harlan Ellison once stormed out of a radio interview after the host referred to his work as "science fiction" instead of "Speculative Fiction."
- Sword of Truth author Terry Goodkind also doesn't write "fantasy novels"; he writes "stories that have important human themes".
- Adobe insists on using their trademarked Photoshop correctly. Just take a look here, under "Proper use of the Photoshop trademark".
- For a long while, fans of Star Trek took umbrage at being called "Trekkies". They were Trekkers, and they let you know it.
- You don't have Legos, you have LEGO™ Bricks or LEGO™ toys. This is a little bit of Stuck On Band Aid Brand.
- I live in the UK, and I've never known anyone use "Legos" - it's always been "Lego bricks" (we don't vocalise capital letters or trademark symbols, thank god) while "Lego" is a mass noun.
- In general, many companies are sticklers on how their trademarks are used, justified by the fact that if they don't defend them, they stand to lose the trademark.
- Ohio State students and graduates will insistently refer to their school as THE Ohio State University. They will also correct anyone who leaves off the "the". However, if anyone else actually does use the "the", there's a fairly good chance that they're making fun of these people and their silly insistence.
- That's because it is the Ohio State University. What's so wrong with having a little pride in your school? Nothing.
- Same with the Florida State University, except it's a term without common currency outside of marketing material and sportscasts.
- "The" Johns Hopkins University suffers the same fate.
- It's also technically The Pennsylvania State University, but the extent to which people don't call it that leads even the school's mailings to have "Penn State" on them.
- Natives of the state of Indiana are not Indianans, they are Hoosiers. This despite the fact nobody actually knows what a Hoosier is. Really. There's no known etymology of the term.
- "Private military contractors" are very touchy about being called "mercenaries".
- The trademark joke from comedian Gabriel Iglesias is "I'm not fat, I'm fluffy".
- Those Wacky Nazis got in on the act too. Joseph Goebbels apparently insisted that people refer to him by his proper title of Doctor Joseph Goebbels.
- An incidence which occurs quite regularly within academia. A doctor is someone who holds a PhD, a professor is someone who holds the position of professor at a university (often the instructors are not technically professors, but lecturers).
- Hormel, the makers of SPAM (the canned meat), really hate that one of their brand names has been co-opted to mean "unsolicited e-mail advertising". So much so that they used to threaten to sue anyone who used "spam" in a name for a computer program.
- They've relaxed a little bit; now they allow "spam" (no caps) to mean junk mail while "SPAM" (all caps, usually with a "tm") is the meat product.
- Don't refer to marines as "soldiers" in the presence of a marine, unless you're looking to pick a fight.
- Relatedly, "ex-Marine" is considered rude when used for anyone who got an Honorable Discharge from the USMC. Once a Marine, always a Marine, so "retired", "veteran", "inactive", and so on are variously preferred.
- Also, don't address ranked superiors with "sir". They aren't officers; they work for a living!
- Some creators of anthropomorphic animal illustration are very insistent on not being called "furry artists."
- Note the use of "illustration" rather than "art" in the above point. This is to pacify those who insist that only True Art be referred to as such.
- As of sometime in 2008, the official term for people serving in AmeriCorps is "AmeriCorps members."
- Hacking is a clever use of computer code. Cracking is breaking into computer systems. Unfortunately the movie conveniently overlooked this.
- This sounds to the untrained ear like a distinction without a difference, but it's like mixing up "Locksmith" and "Armed Burglar".
- Expect a polite correction if you refer to a Central European country from the former Soviet bloc as being in Eastern Europe in the presence of a resident of one of these countries, especially the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland or Hungary. Czechs will point out that Prague is west of Vienna and nobody calls Austria Eastern Europe, and Poles will point out that the geographical centre of Europe is arguably located in their country.
- The British art gallery brand Tate once asked taxi drivers to correct passengers wanting to go to "the Tate"; they actually wanted to go to "Tate Britain". Spell My Name Without A The.
- I'd guess it's partly to make sure that people are being taken to the right gallery, as well as Tate Britain (the original Tate Gallery) there is also the newer Tate Modern gallery which is a couple of miles away from the original gallery.
- A group of Lesbians (as in inhabitants of the island of Lesbos) recently went to court to get people to stop using the word "lesbian" to mean "gay woman". They failed.
- And conversely, gays and lesbians can be touchy about terminology, and one person's insult can be another person's preferred identity. This troper's local organization switched to "Pride" instead of trying to enumerate everyone.
- Never call a zoophile a "bestialist". They love their animals, and bestialists are simply perverts who only use animals for sex.
- People can get like this over their names being pronounced or spelled wrong (e.g. Johan is pronounced "Yo-han"). Justified though — wouldn't you get pissed off by people pronouncing your name wrong?
- If you're ever in the Southern US, expect to get corrected a lot if you refer to the Civil War as the Civil War — to them, it's still "The War Between the States" or "The Second War of Independence" or the "War of Northern Aggression" (notwithstanding that the South kinda shot first...) depending on how much of a chip is still on the shoulder of the speaker.
- This was even a running gag in an episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle, where a "Southern Colonel" would pop up any time anyone said "Civil War" or anything remotely sounding like it...
- This even happens with some of the battles. People from Manassas, VA can instantly tell if your from Virginia or elsewhere depending on if you call the battle there "The Battle of Bull Run" or "The Battle of Manassas."
- Excerpt from news report: North Koreans can finally get a taste of American-style fast food in a new restaurant opened in the capital of the isolated country, as long as they do not ask for a hamburger. Instead, patrons of the Samtaeseong diner, which opened in Pyongyang last month, have to order a suspiciously similar "minced beef with bread".
- Some people insist America is the name of a continent. Actually, there is no continent called America. There is North America and South America, and if referred to collectively, "The Americas." It tends to be a problem only with people whose first language isn't English; Spanish speakers tend to assume that the English words"American" and "America" mean the same thing as the Spanish words "Americano" and "América." In reality, these are false friends, which can cause some tension if someone assumes Americans are trying to appropriate a term for a continent when the term doesn't refer to a continent in English.
- Try calling a Canadian "American" and see what happens. Actually, if you try calling a Canadian "American," you'd better be prepared to run away very quickly afterwards.
- Many holders of PhD degrees, as well as MD, DDS, and similar medical degrees are emphatically insistent on being referred to as Dr. Your Name Here, not Mr./Ms./Mrs. thankyouverymuch. When working in the retail or service industry, this is typically a sign that the person is going to be very difficult to deal with.
- Somewhat justified, in that the Doctor typically had to work very hard for many years to earn that title.
- Another note about being insistent—most people will call a medical degree-holder "doctor" automatically; in this troper's experience, only PhD holders insisting on the salutation really comes off as pretentious.
- Yet another note: as a PhD holder (who doesn't insist on the "Dr.," by the way), I can attest that some medical doctors can become squiffy when PhDs go by "Dr. X"; they claim that PhDs are not "real" doctors. Typically, the PhDs thus accosted will then go off and have grumpy conversations about the origins of the honorific "Dr." and the fact that most medical doctors who use it today would actually have had no right to it even as recently as a century or so ago.
- The term Brontosaurus is a now obsolete synonym for Apatosaurus. Paleontologists will be quick to correct anyone that uses the term Brontosaurus.
- I remember reading an article (can't find the link), where cybernetically augmented people might come to consider the term "robot" Fantastic Racism. Cyborgs are sapient; robots aren't. Sapient robots are "androids".
- This troper role-plays a rogue Terminator with a personality who has the same reaction to robot, he insists on being called a cybernetic organism.
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