Ambiguous Name: Impersonating An Officer

Impersonating an Officer's definition is "characters such as lab techs who aren't actually cops acting like cops". We have a YKTTW currently titled Cop Guise that covers literal impersonation of officers (both police and military, by the by), and it was brought up by Larkmarn that the current Impersonating an Officer is being misused for its literal meaning (out of the first ten wicks, six were blatantly wrong, three probable, and only one correct).

Impersonating an Officer has 91 wicks, 13 inbound links. Results of checking every third wick:

• Angel S 02 E 04 Untouched: Misused for literal
• Big Finish Doctor Who CCS 5 E 2 Echoes Of Grey: Misused for impersonating an intelligence agent
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E10 "What's My Line?: Part 2": ZCE
• Castle S 5 E 5 Probable Cause: misused for literal
• Community S 3 E 17 Basic Lupine Urology: Misused for pretending to be cops for fun
• CSI: ZCE, but it's listed as correct on the trope page
• Doctor Who: ZCE, but based on what I've seen of the show, misused for literal.
• Due South: Misused for literal. Also misuse of Subverted Trope, incidentally.
• Characters.Embers: misused for literal
• BatmanGambit.Fan Works: misused for literal
• Characters.Hogans Heroes: two misuses for impersonating a military officer, one ZCE but having seen the show it's also misuse
• Hustle: misused for literal, officer type not stated
• Inspector Spacetime: misused for literal
• JAG: misused for literal
• Lois & Clark: misused for literal
• Characters.Monkey Island: misused for literal
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: not completely certain, but seems correct
• Psycho Cop: Misused for literal. Twice.
• Raw Deal: Misused for literal. Twice.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!: Misused for literal (the Doctor again)
• Social Engineering: misused for literal on an index
• Supernatural S01 E14 "Nightmare": literal use, potholed from "Impersonating a Priest"
• Supernatural S 02 E 17 Heart: misused as literal (Sam and Dean impersonate FBI agents all the time)
• Characters.Terminator: ZCE
• The Forgotten: correct
• The Secret of Monkey Island: misused as literal (same example as Characters.Monkey Island)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: misused as literal
• Tracker: ZCE
• Castle.Tropes E To L: Correct
• What Are You in For?: misused as literal
• Index Of Exact Trope Titles: Actually wasn't in my check pattern, but it showing up there just drives the misuse home. That's just sad.

Unless my math is off, that's 77.4% misuse. Proposal to transplant the YKTTW into Impersonating an Officer and rename the existing trope to something akin to Forgot He Wasnt A Cop.

edited 22nd Jul '13 3:13:08 PM by StarSword

Ah, best me to it. I only checked the first ten wicks:

• Ace Attorney: Correct
• Angel S01E16 "The Ring": Literal.
• Angel S 02 E 04 Untouched: Literal.
• Arrow S 1 E 20 Home Invasion: Not sure, but really looks literal.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Literal, in the actual trope description.
• Big Finish Doctor Who CCS 5 E 2 Echoes Of Grey: Literal.
• Big Finish Doctor Who CCS 6 E 3 The Memory Cheats: Literal.
• Blue Bloods: Not sure, could be correct?
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer S2E10 "What's My Line?: Part 2": Literal.
• Series/Californication: Looks wrong.

First ten has ONE unambiguously correct, six definitely wrong, and three that I'm not certain, but lean towards wrong.

This needs a rename.

I saw that Blue Bloods episode. As I recall the auxiliary officers are part-time patrolmen who aren't issued guns and are supposed to call in the real cops, but one of them had a gun of his own and fired on a suspect, and it was ruled a good shoot.

Fuzzy but I think it's correct.

Okay, let's give it the benefit of the doubt. Six wrong, two right, two probably wrong.

And one of the wrong ones was in another trope's description, which I personally hold to higher scrutiny and whenever I see misuse in one of those it's a bad sign.

The page itself has a lot of examples where it's basically used as a disguise to get information, access, or other stuff.

I find it sadder that it's being misused for literal on two different indexes, myself.

I fully support trope transplanting the examples that are correct to the definition to a new trope, and remaking Impersonating an Officer into what the phrase is generally used to mean: someone who is not a police officer pretending to be one for their own (usually nefarious) purposes.

I have a blinding hatred for tropes that co-opt a perfectly good pre-existing phrase or word into a name for something else simply because the person doing the naming thought it was "clever"

edited 22nd Jul '13 4:26:40 PM by Madrugada

Oh, hey! No YKTTW attached to this! Agree completely: bad troping practice.

edited 22nd Jul '13 4:28:15 PM by StarSword

Previous topic on this same trope.

And here's the YKTTW that sprang from that older discussion, then languished. I've tweaked the definition somewhat.

I agree that there's a problem. The title made people think this is someone dressing like a cop when the description says that it's about being allowed to behave as an officer. Almost none of the examples fit the description. I do recognize what the description is saying to I think there should be a page for it.

Agree with everybody. This is a bad name and it needs a transplant badly. I would be tempted to strap anyone making names like this on a DNA string and let the replication fork run over them...

I just assumed the on-page examples were decent... buuuuuuuuuuuuuut

• Comic Books:
  • Judge Dredd: Literal
• Film
  • All nine examples are literal.
• Literature:
  • Dirk Gently seems to be correct
  • Discworld: Correct
• Live-Action TV: All incorrect except the following (20/25 incorrect):
  • Ally Mc Beal: Correct
  • Castle: Correct
  • New Tricks: Correct
  • The Sentinel: Correct
  • Murder She Wrote: Correct

I could go on, but I think everyone's made up their mind by now.

edited 23rd Jul '13 12:10:16 PM by Larkmarn

This is why, when someone says "oh, they'll just read the page and figure out what it means," I just laugh quietly to myself.

And that's why the rule is Clear Concise Witty, not Witty Clear Concise. I had a similar problem understanding Hash House Lingo; I thought it referred to hashish due to first seeing it in a Zero Context Example.

So, regarding page action: are we just going to go ahead and continue where the previous thread left off?

edited 24th Jul '13 4:41:06 PM by StarSword

Running some Rolling Updates on the YKTTW. I'm not liking No Badge? No Problem! as a title, though: feels too much like No Plot? No Problem!.

edited 26th Jul '13 8:34:02 AM by StarSword

We've got more than enough examples to launch No Badge? No Problem!. Thoughts on the description?

edited 28th Jul '13 9:41:04 PM by StarSword

It's OK.

No Badge? No Problem! is up to five hats. I still don't like the name but I'm willing to launch. However, maxwellsilver raised questions regarding the Who Framed Roger Rabbit example. Example reads:

• Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Ex-police officer (and current private investigator) Eddie Valiant is brought along to the Acme Factory crime scene by his friend Lieutenant Santino. While there he tries to steal a piece of evidence: the joy buzzer in Marvin Acme's hand. He's caught red-handed by Judge Doom but Santino explains away his action by saying that Valiant was just getting the item for Doom.

maxwellsilver wrote: I not so sure about the Who Framed Roger Rabbit example fits. It's not clear what Eddy was doing with the hand buzzer. It's unclear if he actually was trying to steal it or if he was just picking it - Doom accused him of removing evidence and Santino explains that he's picking it up, we never hear Eddy's side.

Can anyone clear this up? I haven't seen the film, though I probably should.

Based on the private eye genre, it's likely he was going to keep the buzzer to himself as he investigated the murder. "Removing evidence from the scene of a crime", exactly what Doom was accusing him of.

But most of the plainclothes are his friends, so they made an excuse for him.

For the description I would say at the end of the second line, "These people are allowed to act as police because of their investigative skills that are usually some branch of science anywhere from psychology to forensic science."

I'm inclined to allow the Roger Rabbit example, since a brief Google search shows that PIs aren't legally allowed access to the crime scene at all until it's been processed.

Ok, both Cop Guise and No Badge? No Problem! are ready. The plan was to put Cop Guise (literal Impersonating an Officer) where Impersonating an Officer is and No Badge? No Problem! (non-cop attached to the department acts like cop) becomes a new page, right?

edited 30th Jul '13 7:17:16 AM by StarSword

Septimus advised me in Ask The Tropers to recrowner. Here it is.

Hooked. Disregard the clock, I clicked the wrong button.

Should Cop Guise have Impersonating an Officer as a redirect (or name)?