Something must be done: Accidental Innuendo

First, I think it'd be useful to remind ourselves what each one currently covers:

• Double Entendre - Someone's words intentionally have two meanings, one sexual
• Lampshaded Double Entendre - Someone points out that an earlier phrase has a second sexual meaning. This second meaning may well have been unintentional.
  • That's What She Said - A subtrope of Lampshaded Double Entendre. In this case, the second sexual meaning is always unintentional, and it's lampshaded with this particular Stock Phrase
  • Heh Heh, You Said "X" - Apparently identical to That's What She Said except it does not use the Stock Phrase.
• Innocent Innuendo - A work sets up dialogue to sound sexual to characters, the audience or both. It is revealed not to be sexual.
• Accidental Innuendo - Dialogue is not at all meant to be sexual, but we, the perverted viewers, delight in imagining it being so. Innuendo Yay.
• That Came Out Wrong - Someone unintentionally says something that has a second sexual meaning, catches himself and then comments on the mistake.
  • Freudian Slippery Slope - After an example of That Came Out Wrong, the speaker tries to correct himself and commits several further similar errors in succession
• Visual Innuendo - Something looks sexual. May be actual symbolism, may be Accidental Innuendo, may be Innocent Innuendo.
  • Erotic Eating - Subtrope of Visual Innuendo, involving food.
  • Freud Was Right - Subtrope of Visual Innuendo, for penises. Could be intentional phallic imagery, could be Accidental Innuendo.
    • Gun in My Pocket - Subtrope of Freud Was Right, this one exclusively about weapons. Again, could be on purpose, could be accidental, but it reminds us of a penis.
  • Something Else Also Rises - Subtrope of Visual Innuendo for orgasms and erections.
    • Nosebleed - One particular type of visual innuendo for orgasms, I think.
• Or Are You Just Happy to See Me? - A particular stock innuendo/entendre, now generally subverted.

Do I have that right?

edited 21st Feb '12 9:58:06 PM by Routerie

That looks right as far as I can tell. Also as a reminder, these is what the OP started with:

• Limit it to in-universe examples, possibly merging with That Came Out Wrong
• Make it YMMV
• Kill the examples outright

It's been established that the first one won't work since they're two different tropes, and that Accidental Innuendo already is YMMV.

Does anyone really want to get rid of the examples? I'm not really interested in reading them, but I don't see any reason to delete them.

edited 22nd Feb '12 1:07:50 AM by abk0100

I'd pay money to cut the examples on it and every other "Yay" trope, but people will whine if we do, so leaving it YMMV should be a satisfactory solution unless it's seeing pothole abuse similar to the former If You Know What I Mean, in which case a more drastic solution is needed. We'll probably have to do a wick check for that.

@75 - Actually, that wasn't my problem. My problem is Lampshaded Double Entendre looks like Lampshaded Double Entendre.

@77&78 - Well, when the Innuendo Tropes list is done, we will close this thread and open that one. Discussing this one trope is now unnecessary.

edited 22nd Feb '12 11:01:30 AM by crazysamaritan

The wall of examples is sort of annoying, but upon inspection, is justified single-handedly by the link to the Shake Weights advertisements.

I think the list is done now, right?

Honestly, I think this sort of thing doesn't really lend itself to "WE MUST SAVE IT!" Honestly, I think it just ends up coming off as creepy and perverted. But hey, I've never been in the majority before! Why stop now?

If we consider Porn Tropes to be legit, despite their subject matter, we can handle innuendo tropes.

The difference is, it's fairly unambiguous what qualifies as porn. Innuendo, on the other hand, is a perfect opportunity for the myriad creeps of this site to look for allegedly dirty material. Combine that with some of the other problems of this site (as I've mentioned in past discussions on Getting Crap Past the Radar) and the situations aren't really comparable.

That is why I say these should be In-Universe only, since it makes them unambiguous as well.

I think the examples of Accidental Innuendo are hilarious and should not be cut. There doesn't seem to be any significant amount of misuse and where else can you find a list of this stuff. It's completely harmless and full of good examples.

I occasionally worry whether "make it in-universe" has become our default solution to bad YMMV tropes, but in this case I wholeheartedly approve. Is that a suggestion just for Accidental Innuendo, or for the whole set?

1. Since the point of this site is documenting tropes in works, In-Universe should be the default for most tropes.

2. Yeah, I say do it for others.

It makes no sense to talk about In-Universe examples of Accidental Innuendo. The whole point of the trope is that the innuendo is not intended in the work, that it is purely an audience invention. If innuendo is recognized in the work then it disqualifies itself from being Accidental Innuendo.

This means that restricting Accidental Innuendo to In-Universe examples would be the same as cutting all of the examples, since there are no proper In-Universe examples. Alternatively, we could redefine Accidental Innuendo to make it something like Lampshaded Double Entendre, but that would still mean discarding all of the current examples.

New thread ready. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1330096391090800200&page=1#1

I cannot begin to overstate how large of a "plus" this is in my book.

Yeah, in-universes example aren't this trope at all. If any exist, they're examples of a different trope - something very close to Heh Heh, You Said "X".

Thing is, the current trope is a disaster. In-universe examples would be a different trope, yes, but they'd be a trope that would be much better to have.

This trope is exactly what it's supposed to be. A list of things that kind-of sound dirty if you're in the right mindset. What's the problem?

That is the problem. What you describe is a horrible "trope" - tropes that are just "lists of stuff" are bad (or at least questionable), YMMV tropes with no standards whatsoever are likewise bad, and tropes that let the many sickos on this site run rampart are worse then both. Accidental Innuendo combines all three.

Calling people sickos is not how you make a good argument

I have to agree that the list of examples is a list of stuff, but I'd have to say that about most tropes. It is YMMV, but you're wrong that it has no standards; every example has an alternative interpretation with an unintended meaning. All the examples currently listed meet that standard, unless I've failed to notice a few which don't.

And unless we start requiring background checks before allowing people to edit, we're just going to have to accept people as they come, sickos and not sickos.

edited 24th Feb '12 8:24:12 PM by Lilwik

Literally anything can be suggestive in the correct context. If I go through and list every case of it in a series you'll have five pages worth of stuff. Then I can watch it in a different mood and generate another five pages. And then another five.

Accidental Innuendo is too ubiquitous for examples that aren't deliberate in-universe uses.

Hell, it's almost People Sit On Chairs if we just let people throw stuff out they think is this without an acknowledgement in the work.

edited 24th Feb '12 8:57:20 PM by Night

But of course, it can't be acknowledge in the work because then it wouldn't be this. If examples are really that common then we should probably find a way to tighten the definition so that only the extreme examples can be included.

On the other hand, it really doesn't seem to me that examples are as common as you say they are.

In-universe acknowledgement is never impossible if you have a third-person narrator to show the thoughts of both parties. Or a first-person who knows the other character well. Or...

I could go on here, but the assertion it's not possible is absurd.

And if it's not possible then we might as well axe all the examples anyways, because then we're back to People Sit On Chairs levels of possibility. Literally anything is capable of being innuendo and we can't police the thoughts of the adding troper to see how much effort it took to make it that way.