Rename--foreign, unclear, snowclone. TropeDecay.: Diabolus Ex Machina

To stop this getting bogged down in irrelevant arguments and accusations again: this is being proposed for identical reasons to the Kuudere rename, since it has worse stats but is otherwise similar.

The reasons are:

1. It's not in English. I've checked—the Oxford English Dictionary and Mirriam-Webster one don't think the phrase as a whole or individual components are words.*
   ^{ex- is a prefix.}
2. It's a snowclone of a popular term but the use of the new term is limited to one group: those with an interest in literary analysis.*
   ^{Claiming one group's use of a term is more important than another's meets two obstacles: wilfully deriding one group and ignoring the No Such Thing As Notability guidelines. Not to mention disparate size of groups...}
3. Lack of clarity. The literal translation, and related English words, is actually horribly misleading. An argument used before is that Deus ex Machina is a commonly-known word the average person will know and this is similar enough to make sense. I just asked 30 people of high-school age or above*
   ^{The named age group that would know this.}
   what Deus ex Machina means. None of them knew.*
   ^{One of the four teachers went and translated the Latin, oddly enough.}
   Obviously, it's not as well-known as people are assuming.

Therefore, I see no reason the name should be kept if we apply the reasons used for Kuudere equally.

At least some measure of decay seems likely, since much of the description and proposed renames/redirects from the last thread assume that Diabolus ex Machina is an Ending Trope. Use disagrees with this. I'm unsure whether this is a problem with the description or the use, though.

Since this failed last time, I don't see why it should succeed this time, honestly.

Last time was locked due to accusations of trying to falsify the history of the English language, which was a sad digression. That, and the only argument beyond 'I don't want a rename' was that Deus ex Machina is well-known enough that the average person can deduce the meaning. Oh, and another teacher doesn't know.

Either way, there's still Trope Decay to investigate.

UPDATE: Nine teachers and two librarians had no clue. One English teacher had a general idea but thought it was limited to theatre and endings.

edited 12th Sep '11 2:28:31 AM by RainehDaze

Deus ex Machina has been a staple of the English Langauge for over two millennia, and one of the first tropes to be explicitly identified as such and given a name. Tsundere is a quasi-loanword that you almost never hear outside of the internet and has been around for... I don't know. Five years? Ten? The Other Wiki's article on it has no references earlier than 2006.

I'm not ruling out the possibility that Diabolus ex Machina needs to be renamed, but the comparison is not doing this proposal any favors. If anything, it makes it come across as less of a proposal and more of an attempt to make a point.

I think we have a bit of a "clash of civilizations" thing going on. Some people instinctively respond to the above with horror. Other people instinctively respond to the above with the conclusion that "Deus ex Machina" is passe and the future of talking about fiction is Gainax Endings and Meganekkos. I honestly do not think there is much common ground to be found between the two groups.

edited 12th Sep '11 3:10:56 AM by TripleElation

Umm... culture is irrelevant, in the sense of media consumption. It's that the main argument for Diabolus ex Machina's being a good name is its resemblance to Deus ex Machina. If the average person is being assumed to work it out on name and resemblance alone, I obviously found more than thirty abnormal people and no normal ones except an English teacher.

As for the tsundere thing? Not relevant. A snowclone is still a snowclone, regardless of age of origin. And I'm not proposing changes to Deus ex Machina, am I?

It's a snowclone of a popular term but the use of the new term is limited to one group: those with an interest in literary analysis.

Literary analysis being completely irrelevant to the interests of Tropers?

I believe that if some people do not know what a Deus ex Machina is, we should not back down from using it or anything which relies on it for that reason alone, but try our best to teach it to them; and that this is a privilege that we should not be giving Tsundere. You are arguing that if Deus ex Machina gets this privilege, Tsundere should get it as well.

I find it hard to attribute the discrepancy to anything other than an "attitude to fiction DNA" of sorts we've picked up during the many years (I'm sure) the both of us have been into fiction.

edited 12th Sep '11 3:39:49 AM by TripleElation

Listen good, people:

<This trope name> should be changed because <that other trope name that is vaguely similar> was changed is not a sufficient reason.

When a thread is locked for being unproductive, immediately starting a new thread on the same subject is a bad idea.

Locking this up.

edited 12th Sep '11 4:56:25 AM by Madrugada