TropeNamer is not an example: Zero Wingrish

Okay, everybody knows Zero Wing. But Zero Wing was badly translated, not an imitation/parody of bad translations. I suggest renaming it something like Intentional Engrish (which is sort of alliterated).

Or something self demonstrating. Write In Engrish For Funny?

Or just add those suggestions as redirects... Is this trope name actually hard to guess or causing problems?

124 wicks, and 617 inbounds as of this post. You all can decide if that's good or not. We should also check for misuse.

Now I wrote up this trope, but I won't defend the name if it's causing misuse. I just want it to do well.

There might not be a lot of abuse, but I have seen it used instead of Good Bad Translation and such. Even so, the title is misleading if you ask me.

Zero Wing is a 22-year-old video game, that nowadays nobody would have heard of if it wasn't for the AYBABTU meme - and even AYBABTU is old, stale, and rarely referenced any more.

Also, outside of T Vtropes, "zero wingrish" gets less than 200 google hits. This shows it's clearly not the accepted term for this phenomenon, or indeed for anything else.

So yeah, I think this name is unclear because of Fan Myopia, and the name is gibberish unless you're familiar with the work in question. I think we could easily find a much better name than this.

Fan Myopia does not mean a reference you don't get.

Is "Engrish Played for Laughs" even a trope?

Yes, because actual Engrish is mistranslating something into English, while this isn't actually translating another language, but twisting your own language into something that looks like a bad translation.

Bump. The best name I can come up with is Intentional Engrish.

EDIT: To clarify, me and the OP came up with Intentional Engrish separately, as I didn't bother to read the thread.

edited 12th Dec '11 12:30:53 PM by bwburke94

For what role Fan Myopia plays in Trope Namer Syndrome, it's certainly relevant to the problems a name like "Zero Wingrish" would have on its own. I, for one, didn't even think the game botched the English language intentionally, nor would I have picked that detail up from a name like this if that is actually the case, anyway.

edited 12th Dec '11 2:02:47 PM by SeanMurrayI

I'm not denying it's a bad name (I did pick that name when I made the ykttw). It was just that it was in the time when pun names were acceptable, more than thinking everyone knew about the game.

If the thing is the intentionality v/s accidentality, I don't see how a full-fledged rename would be needed instead of simply extending this to Zero Wingrish Style (or, even better, Zero Wing Engrish Style), the "Style" being the key part. I would have expected Engrish Parody Translation be already a searchable redirect, but I'll assume it is not.

Although the problem is, even in that case the old name Zero Wingrish should be pointing to something else... or nothing at all. Much as I like the name, it is not exactly about the trope but about the instances of it.

Well for me it fails the 'guess that trope' test. I had no idea what it was about from the name.

edited 12th Dec '11 11:26:41 PM by NoirGrimoir

It fails the test for me as well. I thought it simply meant "Engrish".

The problem isn't with the name being a pun. It just doesn't accurately reflect what the trope is really supposed to be.

Wow, this is quite possibly the most obscure trope name I've seen all year. A rename is definitely in order.

Yes, that's his point. A couple years ago, it was more important that a trope name was some pun or obscure reference, than that it was accurate. Basically the opposite from our current naming guidelines.

(edit) oh and yeah, definitely +1 for renaming this.

edited 13th Dec '11 9:18:01 AM by Spark9

Deliberate Engrish For Funny?

I think the aforementioned Intentional Engrish sums everything up well enough.

I'd prefer a self demonstrating title. It's not as though Engrish is incomprehensible, so such a title would still be clear.

Not only that, this trope is about non-translations, so the title should make that clear as well.

edited 13th Dec '11 12:04:03 PM by DragonQuestZ

Intentional Engrish for Funny (with Intentional Engrish and Engrish For Funny as redirects) seems like a good compromise.

I like Intentional Engrish.

Intentional Engrish might be good.

On a sidenote, I think all Zero Wing named tropes need to be looked at, partly for their names, and partly for how tropable they are in the first place. I can't help but think fans of the AYBABTU meme created such tropes just to shoehorn Zero Wing trope-namers.

edited 19th Dec '11 9:37:49 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

No, most of of them are tropes. It's just that a lot of them aren't the best names, and one doesn't even fit the trope (All Your Base Are Belong to Us refers to invading the good guy's headquarters, not total conquest).