Stock Phrases: do we want or need them?

Shut Up, Hannibal! (purely dialogue-based), and "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight (dialogue/phrase as a qualifier). What do we do about them?

edited 13th Jul '11 1:04:18 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Shut Up, Hannibal! is under repair for reasons unrelated to the name. "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight doesn't seem to have any problems.

Fast Eddie has stated "no more dialog-like titles", though.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Yes, and the entire point of this thread is to determine if he's right or not.

Okay, and what has been determined so far?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

To summarize the last ten pages? That there are a lot of bad tropes named after stock phrases, and they could use a rename, but there's nothing inherently bad with naming them that way, and if one seems to have a problem they should be dealt with one by one.

There was a bit of argument on whether or not to rename the index.

And Fast Eddie agreed to that?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I have no idea. Some of his posts looked like agreement. Some looked like disagreement. Most of the time, he didn't say anything.

I don't know what his position is on this, after reading through the entire thread. Somebody else is gonna have to answer that one.

I disagree with the "nothing inherently bad" part of that. The elements of inherent badness are:

It is not a good way to refer to a trope. A trope needs a name, really. Not a title.

Another big problem is that it attracts a zillion examples that are just the line being used somewhere.

The number one huge problem, though, is that the description in many cases gets drafted as if it is about the line, and not 'why the line was written.

Why it was written is the thing the wiki is about. The trope.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

We've got people writing bad descriptions all over the place. Building the description around an example or two is something that occurs outside of these as well.

Fight smart, not fair.

But not every trope with a dialogue title shows that kind of misuse, and I'm worried that you won't bother to check that it's there. Earlier in the thread you wanted to rename Sorry, I'm Gay whether it showed misuse or not simply because it was a dialogue-named trope. As it turned out, there was a lot of misuse, but I get the feeling you would have wanted it renamed even if every single wick was entirely correct. As I've said before, while I have no particular attachment to stock phrases, I don't want our rules on When To Rename A Trope ignored or bypassed.

Speaking of stock phrases, can I collect opinions on a recently launched YKTTW? "Wrote the Book on It" is the one. (I'm also griping that they didn't launch it with the name I'd prefer for it, but that's not actually important and I already set up the redirect. :) )

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Example As Thesis does cause issues, as well, but there are less of them than there are of the dialog-like 'stock phrase' things.

If someone can find an example of a dialog-like title used correctly as a trope name, rather than just a shout out to the line, could you steer me toward it? I haven't run across one on my own.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

What Year Is It?.

And if you want the reasons why that's good, read the TRS thread you opened up on it.

No, I meant a link to where it used as a name.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

I can't think of an exact example off the top of my head, but as far as I have seen Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? is always used correctly as "this character is phobically terrified of a specific thing".

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

However, that one could very easily be renamed Stock Phobia, Snake Phobia, Afraid Of Snakes, or something similar and not lose any meaning, other than being a line of dialogue.

edited 14th Jul '11 9:43:01 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

But why should it have to? If its being used correctly, what's the problem?

^^ He asked for one that's consistently used properly, not one that there's no possible rename for.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I only looked at about 10 of the wicks. None of them were used in a sentence. They were all used as an example list item.

I'm curious about places where it is used to talk about the trope. Fighteer is right that more 'organic' use would come from something like Signature Phobia, which you could use in a sentence. This is why this widespread trope is getting a pretty meager 588 inbounds.

edited 14th Jul '11 11:16:41 AM by FastEddie

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty

The vast majority of the wicks for any trope are going to be as list items. It's when the majority are potholes rather than list items (I Am Not Making This Up, So Yeah, X Just X,) that we start looking hard at whether the name has become Natter.

edited 14th Jul '11 11:59:44 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

What about Nice Job Breaking It, Hero? It is a very dialogue-like title, even without pronouns, and I've never seen that one pop up in TRS for alleged problems.

This and this. All wikilinks break down into three types, really:

• List-items.
• Wiki Words that explicitly reference the trope by name in a sentence (its particular part of speech irrelevant)
• Piped links

It's that last one that's particularly prone to misuse.

edited 14th Jul '11 12:22:00 PM by Stratadrake

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Can you give an example of all three of those? Cuz I don't have the slightest idea what "piped links" means.

He means Pot Holes.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Ah. Nevermind then.