Stock Phrases: do we want or need them?

Fair enough. Maybe the example I chose was dumb. We're here to discuss problems, or in this very thread's case, to discuss the right approach for certain issues.

Give some examples of problematic Stock Phrases. Some brainstorming can't hurt.

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

I Got Better, Your Mileage May Vary, Flat "What", Ruined FOREVER, Is the Answer to This Question "Yes"?.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

We still need to clean the It Got Worse pile too.

^^ Back before it was changed to Recursive Translation, Do Not Want as well, which was far more commonly used in the Meme sense of the former trope name.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Plus two of the wiki's all-time classics - "If You Know What I Mean" and "Or Is It?" Plus "I Am Not Making This Up". All three were massive Troper Tics.

edited 5th Jul '12 8:59:40 AM by Stratadrake

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

I'm back on track, guys.

In order to answer to Septimus Heap:

• I Got Better: that Stock Phrase has been renamed to Unexplained Recovery, anyway, so we'll eventually manage to rewrite the examples with a cleanup. Problem is, I Got Better is semi-protected by Grandfather Clause, and by that I mean "I Got Better" surely outnumbers "Unexplained Recovery" in articles. A cleanup similar to the Nightmare Fuel one should be needed, and I'd suggest recruitment via Wiki Headlines as well. By itself, this one is an excellent example of "the stock phrase is triggered by the trope without necessarily being the trope itself".

Example: * Unexplained Recovery: lampshaded by the character, who simply replied with the stock phrase, "I Got Better".

• Your Mileage May Vary: the best suggestion is, leave as-is. It's a catch-all term for both Audience Reactions, Subjective Tropes^note (fun fact: no, it is not a "contradiction in terms" - subjective tropes rely on the audience's different perceptions when it comes to decide whether one applies or not, that's all. Saying that "a trope is objectively there or not there" is another way to put the fact someone wants those tropes off the site. Nobody's fooling anyone.) as well as the very fact "it depends on what you think" itself. In other words, the only think that needs to be removed are the sinkholes; just saying "your mileage may vary" in a sentence should be fine already.
• Flat "What": it's a noun by itself, so the whole "try using a phrase-like trope name like that in an actual sentence" fuss doesn't apply here. Removing sinkholes should suffice.
• Ruined FOREVER: same thing as Flat "What", only made different in that Ruined Forever is also a YMMV item YMMV trope, and one of the most problematic (read: bashing) Audience Reactions in that even its description classifies it as "over-reacting"; as said before, sinkhole-mass-removal is something that needs to be done by default|; examples themselves, on the other hand, should stay if backed up by most of a given fanbase. Besides, Audience Reactions as a whole should stay as, despite not being tropes in the strictest sense, are still part of the work - though indirectly - and due to the aforementioned Grandfather Clause, they're not likely to get cut soon.
• "Is the Answer to This Question "Yes"?": it is. And the answer to the question you're going to ask me (because The Tape Knew You Would Say That *
  (see, Eddie? It's easy to use Stock Phrases in other sentences! ^w^)
  ) is, yes, this one can be renamed as, say, Foregone Affirmative Answer or Obviously Affirmative Answer, with "-Inducing Question" attached to either trope name to make it clearer if needed. Yes, I proposed alternate names because, out of these examples, this one is the one that's actually problematic. For the following reasons:
  • It's not a Stock Phrase, but rather a Stock Phrase Format, with its examples being snowclones of the trope name. Given the trope's nature, this is inevitable.
  • It's a sure-fire Pothole Magnet due to the reason above.
  • Its current phrase-like trope name can't be listed inside another sentence also due to the same reasons above.

All in all, there actually are some problematic Stock Phrases. Which doesn't justify this absolute beauty of a comment from the page before this one:

"First you stop the toilet from overflowing, then you mop up the floor."

As I mentioned before, "No New Stock Phrases" is a settlement. And like all settlements, it was supposed to suffice. For some reason, it didn't. And now "we"*

supposedly want "No Stock Phrases At All". No, we don't want that. As stock phrases' detractors apparently haven't given up, neither will their supporters (as in, the stock phrases' supporters. Not the detractors' supporters).

edited 5th Jul '12 9:40:24 AM by AlexSora89

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

Pothole Magnet doesn't mean "most links to the trope are in piped form", it means "people link to the trope because they can."

Interesting way of phrasing it. It's only a Stock Phrase if it's already commonly used outside the wiki and for the specific meaning the article is about. Otherwise it's just a shoehorned attempt to create a "stock phrase" that doesn't even exist, which is a majority of what NNSP is for.

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

What I meant with "Stock Phrase Format" is that, while the Stock Phrase is used by itself as it is, the "format" refers to a Stock Phrase that is never referred to in its original "Is the Answer to This Question "Yes"?" format, but rather other questions with inevitably affirmative answers derived from that one.

Although, come to think of it, "regular" tropes usually don't get referred to with their original names usually (and when it happens, we consider it a Lampshade Hanging). This thing is getting tricky.

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

Whether the links to a trope are primarily in Wiki Word or piped form has little to no bearing on the title's merit.

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

I know, but that wasn't exactly the point. Look:

• And then the character asked if the other thought he didn't have feelings too. (potholed Stock Phrase)
• And then the character asked, "Do You Think I Can't Feel?". (Stock Phrase used in a sentence)
• And then the character asked if the sky was blue. (potholed Stock Phrase format)
• And then the character asked, "is the sky blue?". (still potholed Stock Phrase format, as used in a sentence)

I'm sorry if I had to use an Example as a Thesis, but still, I hope this clarify things a bit. The difference between a Stock Phrase and the Stock Phrase Format is that the former can be used in a sentence, while the latter can't. Just try saying

• "the character asked, Is the Answer to This Question "Yes"??"

... it's impossible. Sure, there might be a quote or two exactly phrased like that, but otherwise, Pot Hole-ing it is the only option. Which is what makes it more of a Pothole Magnet than other, more specific Stock Phrases.

I'm from Piedmont. No relation with Piedmon, mind you!

Okay, I see what you mean there. Of course, it has little bearing on trope lists, only linking in other contexts.

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

Regarding the usability of trope names in a sentence — trope names that function as nouns (MacGuffin, etc.) are easy to work into and sound pretty natural at the same time. Trope names that function as complete, declarative sentences are also fairly easy to work into their surroundings, all you need to do is punctuate and conjunct.

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

The problem with stock phrases is that they are usually only one way of saying the trope among many. Also, using them as a phrase spoken by character will likely decay into a list of characters who said that line, especially with a few of the omnipresent Zero Context Examples added in.

The stock phrase format is difficult to fit into a sentence without using a pothole. This discourages off-wiki usage (because potholing is a wiki thing) and favours Pothole Magnetism and sinkholery.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Very well, but, surely, this isn't a universal rule? There are plenty of tiles that simply work better as lines; they're more concise, they have more punch, more suggestion. As long as the focus is on the meaning and not on the phrase, I think caution should be used, but I don't think banning them outright is the right decision. Otherwise, there are tropes that are just too hard to name using stuff that doesn't sound like dialogue. Which is better, "You shall not become me" or "Parents Or Mentors Do Not Want Their Children Or Followers To Follow The Same Path As Them"? How often would one expect a phrase such as "You Shall Not Become Me" to be used in dialogue, overpotholed, and so on?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.