Rename: Somebody Set Up Us The Bomb

The title, though an example, is an example of "Blind Idiot" Translation, and as such is completely non indicative. It just doesn't make sense and should be changed.

Hidden Time Bomb?

The wik count and inbounds are healthy. Is it being misused?

A pre-existing trope name, but this certainly needs some better redirects. Hidden Time Bomb seems pretty good.

edited 7th Feb '11 10:35:26 AM by DRCEQ

Supporting a redirect. The title is preexisting term and, unless you want to stick with whatever some Mayer / Meyer / Mester / whatever the Bristish Academy or Tea and True English Language calls on it, I don't see a serious grammar or semantic problem with the current name.

Made the redirect.

Adding Surprise Bomb as a redirect as well, if nobody minds.

I could imagine the title causing misuse along the lines of what we see with Over Nine Thousand, i.e. a memetic phrase being potholed where the phrase appears regardless of whether the actual trope is present. But that's not a kind of misuse that a rename would fix—well, unless we removed the redirect, which seems like a bad idea given how healthy the page is right now.

I'm going through to check misuse, and I'll get back to you later on. but aside from that it seems there are two works pages about Sherlock Jr. Any idea what should be done about that?

Links:

• ptitleg93xc8nq
• ptitle9tzgdt7v

edited 8th Feb '11 1:51:14 PM by VincentGaribaldi

Make a separate thread about it.

I understand how much use this page gets, but should we really have titles that actually don't mean anything in the English language?

I say make a new page that's non-ptitled and in the right namespace. And then redirect them (and see inbounds in case either redirect can be cut). Although that should probably get its own thread.

INUH — What do you mean with "doesn't mean anything in the English language"? The signification of the phrase seems pretty straighforward to me. It has a subject, an object, and an action.

It does have a subject (somebody), an object (us) and an action (set up), but the bomb is just tacked onto the end. Its relation to the rest of the sentence string of words is gramatically nonexistent.

edited 29th Jun '11 12:18:56 PM by INUH

Last time I checked my grammer, the object is that on which the object is applied. Here, it is the bomb that is being set up, not us. Us is the indirect complement, or whatever its english name is.

It's a memetic line of Engrish from Zero Wing...it may be doing alright in terms of wicks and outbounds, but it just doesn't parse grammatically. It wouldn't bother me at all if it was renamed to one of the suggested redirects.

edited 29th Jun '11 12:25:05 PM by Willbyr

That's true, although in that case Hidden Time Bomb is already a redirect. I don't see the why for a rename in such a case, as we lose wittyness for nothing (the redirect already fulfills clear and, apparently, concise).

I'm not sure I'd call using a line from a ten-year-old meme verbatim "witty".

edited 29th Jun '11 12:51:10 PM by joeyjojojuniorshabadoo

We definitely don't rename just because you don't like the name. If there's misuse, there's misuse. Show it first though.

edited 29th Jun '11 1:54:53 PM by savage

Bump. This trope has 74 wicks, 61 inbounds; that shows it's not a healthy trope. Since it's a pretty common trope, heavily underused, and badly named, I think a rename would be a good idea.

T Vtropes is not Know Your Meme; we surely have no obligation to stick to ten-year-old internet memes as trope names (and yes, the meme really is that old; the game itself is 22 years old).

I repeat my latest post. There's already a redirect that seems to brings up whatever you think it is bad with this trope, I haven't seen misuse proof here, and you need to specify why the trope is "unhealthy" — not just "X mentions in Y time" but also need a context, not all tropes are omnipresent or happen in a memorable way in any thinkable work that people will edit about.

If a title is misspelled, we rename it even if it works. This seems worse than a misspelling.

It was named for a game, not the meme.

I question that.

Had "All your base are belong to us" not have gone meme, War Was Beginning, All Your Base Are Belong to Us, You Have No Chance To Survive Make Your Time, Take Off Every Zig, and Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb NEVER would've been trope titles (and, arguably, bad ones at that; two of these trope names have since been renamed, and All Your Base Are Belong to Us is the only one with a healthy collection wicks and outside referrals).

edited 10th Oct '11 12:39:11 PM by SeanMurrayI

The ykttw made it clear it was named for the game more than the meme.

The name comes from something from the game, but the game went fairly unnoticed by the world at large until its opening sequence became a meme a full decade after it had been published. Had it not gone meme, the game would've continued to languish in obscurity and never provide the name for ANY tropes.

Still, crediting the game and not the meme it indirectly spun off doesn't justify keeping the current name in light of all its problems.

Also, the page's YKTTW doesn't specifically credit the game as a trope namer, only for being a trope example.

edited 10th Oct '11 1:02:03 PM by SeanMurrayI