History Main / TheScottishTrope

* Russian government-controlled media and official politicians try their hardest to avoid saying the name of Alexey Navalny - opposition leader and anti-corruption activist. If they have no other option they usually say "this blogger" or "that activist" or even "that known criminal".

* Sort of a bizarre inversion: When talking about poison ivy while it was nearby, the Cherokee would refer to it as "my friend" so as to not piss it off. And this was back when poison ivy and related plants would not have been anywhere near as big or scary as they are today.

* Similarly, traditional Jewish kabbalists avoid uttering the names of demons or even [[OurAngelsAreDifferent angels]], for fear that they'll turn up, angry at being summoned by a mortal.

** DoubleSubversion in ''Theatre/{{Hamilton}}''. In the song "Take a Break", Hamilton quotes Macbeth, then sings "I trust you'll understand the reference to another Scottish tragedy without me having to name the play." [[TemptingFate He then immediately refers to himself as Macbeth]]. As many fans have pointed out, after this song, everything in Hamilton's life goes to shit. [[spoiler:Hamilton cheats on his wife, is blackmailed for years by both his lover's husband and then by Burr, Jefferson & Madison, loses his job when Washington leaves office, is the subject of a sex scandal when his affair is leaked in a document that he wrote and published to clear his name of a different crime that permanently wrecks his prospects of becoming President, being estranged from his wife, having his son killed in a duel in his honor, and ultimately being killed in a duel himself.]]

* Dancers follow the same taboo, but you don't want to tell a dancer to break a leg (it happens to them too often); instead you say "merde", which is French for "shit".
** "merde" works in just about any context, and better yet, especially in the context of taking an exam, is "merde puissant treize" ("shit to the 13th power").

* The writer of ''Theatre/AShoggothOnTheRoof'' is referred to as "He Who [For Legal Reasons] Must Not Be Named". This is partly because the play borrows the music (if not the words) for its songs from ''Theatre/FiddlerOnTheRoof'' and thus can't be performed, at least in the United States. Mostly, though, it's because he was [[Franchise/CthulhuMythos driven insane by perverse dreams of non-euclidean geometry and whispers of names the human tongue could not bear]], and now resides in an asylum, which also [For Legal Reasons] must not be named. Similarly, nonprofit performances are technically legal (or, at least in a slightly more legally grey area), yet tend to meet with mysterious accidents. Unfortunately, we can't be sure if that's due to sabotage, or more likely simply by the natural BrownNote effects of the play.

* If you stand in front of a mirror in the dark and say "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary!" she'll appear and scratch your face off. Who is "she", you ask? ''Mary Worth'' [[note]]others guesses by scholars include Mary I of England, Elizabeth Bathory. Mary Worth herself was all but certainly made up and changed to suit local variants like most folklore, with every alleged "true story" about her unable to agree even on what continent and century she was from.[[[/note]], and no, not [[ComicStrip/MaryWorth that one]].

* In ''TabletopGame/{{BattleTech}}'', one of the original twenty Clans was subject to a Trial of Annihilation ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin exactly what it sounds like]]) and all mention of it was removed from official records. Bringing up the Clan in any way (even to ask if it ever existed) is a BerserkButton for other Clanners. The most notable example is Clan Wolverine, which the Clans refer to as the Not-named-Clan. The exact reason for their annihilation are scarce (ilKhan Kerensky needed a scapegoat to cement his rule), the Clans removed all traces of their existences from Clan Space, and even renamed a 'Mech because it had the same name. When the invading Clans discovered a man who's DNA matches that to a member of Clan Wolverine, they killed him, and hunted rest of his family to eliminate their trace from existence.

* Most of the poems in the ''Literature/VitaNuova'' go out of their way not to mention Beatrice's name to keep [[Creator/DanteAlighieri Dante]]'s love for her a secret. The only time he writes down her name is in his GriefSong for her and in the last poem of the collection, when Dante relives his [[LoveAtFirstSight first sight]] of Beatrice in a vision.