Misused: Country Matters

Country Matters. The description says "it's the one word nobody ever uses unless they want to break someone down…Even shows comfortable with using other swear words hesitate to use it…In North America, it is among the worst insults in the (American) English language." Which already barely suggests a trope in itself, but the examples seem to amount to nothing more than "this work used the word 'cunt' once", which is definitely not a trope.

tl;dr: Is this even a trope, or just massively trope-decayed?

Most likely the latter. The examples need to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb and any that don't come close to the definition (like the Questionable Content example in the Webcomics section) need to be axed.

Well, the first line of the description says, This is an article about the word "cunt."

I don't think people bothers to read the rest of the page before using it. And I honestly don't get what this trope is supposed to tell, based on the description alone.

Inclined to vote Not Tropeworthy. The only clear part of the definition is that it has to do with the word "cunt".

edited 1st Mar '14 11:30:29 AM by StarSword

Seconding the vote of Not Tropeworthy. Re-reading the description, all I get is "'Cunt' has a lot of uses, these are just works that use 'cunt' with no other common thread."

edited 1st Mar '14 1:24:33 PM by Twentington

606 wicks and just over a thousand inbounds, but I think this can be folded into another trope pretty easily. Precision F-Strike, perhaps.

I think the trope here is supposed to be cunt is the worst swearword (in America).

Which still makes it just "These works use the word 'cunt'" and nothing more.

What does that definition tell us, though? Unless we're trying to do a Scale for swear word rudeness, I don't think it's really relevant when it does get used in media?

EDIT: Ninja'd

Sorry, I was referring to shimaspawn's post

edited 1st Mar '14 6:11:00 PM by theAdeptrogue

Which is my point. This is not a trope.

I did think that "this is the worst swearword" could be a trope, but I don't think it will be easy to keep it free from misuse.

If it redirected anywhere, I'd expect some sort of UsefulNotes.Profanity sort of page.

The gist of the trope, as far as I can tell from the description, is that calling someone that is meant to be seen as an attack way beyond the norm of the characters' interactions; it's supposed to be meant for shock value and/or a reason for a confrontation. Simple uses of the word can probably be merged into Precision F-Strike.

Only if the work or the character doesn't normally swear much.

Reading through the description, I'm under the impression that it's about how Americans view the word as the worst while Brits see it as relatively okay in comparison, a specific instance of profanity-caused Values Dissonance. In that case, this trope is misused and could well have the examples examined closely, with the right ones (and the trope) folded into Did Not Do the Bloody Research (it is, essentially, a one-word variation on that trope) and the rest zapped.

Bump. Any idea what to do here?

If the author/production of the line meant to emphasis on the rudeness or make fun of the word Cunt, it is being a trope. Half of them do, at least.

If we do decide it's a real trope, it absolutely needs a new name; a huge part of the problem is that the current name is just a lame pun with no indication of what the trope is about beyond the word 'cunt' (and clearly the rampant misuse shows that that name is not helping things.)

However, I'm not sure it's a real trope. Certain words are particularly bad swear words, yes, but are we going to create a trope for each of them? What's the point? It feels like this trope was primarily made because someone wanted to use the Incredibly Lame Pun in its title — I don't really see much else to it. We already have a page for the Seven Dirty Words; I'm not sure we need a whole page to say "this word has remained somewhat more verboten than the other words on the list", especially when there's not really anything to put on that page beyond 'you can't say that!' reactions (which aren't themselves tropes — they don't really signify anything about the work where they appear — but more like people collecting evidence for the premise that the word is particularly verboten. I mean, it's a premise I tend to agree with, sure; 'cunt' is definitely very illicit, and we could maybe have a Useful Notes or Just for Fun page or something discussing why that might be. But collecting evidence for it or examples of people reacting to the use of the word or whatever doesn't seem like it makes sense as a trope page.)

Clock is set.

Quick wick check:

• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Potholed word.
• True Blood: Zero Context Example.
• True Blood Seasonal Villains: Potholed phrase under Cluster F-Bomb.
• 24-Hour Party People: People say bad words.
• Two Chicks In A Kitchen: Potholed "C-word."
• 2 Live Crew: People say bad words, though "not much use."
• Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps: Potholed incomplete word under Curse Cut Short.
• T-Word Euphemism: Potholed "C-word," plus several other uses.
• Tyson: People discuss saying bad words.
• Ulysses: Even "with relevant wordplay," it's a Zero Context Example.
• Unfortunate Item Swap: Potholed phrase.
• United States of Tara: People get into trouble for saying bad words.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Potholed word in dirty joke.
• Unwitting Pawn: Potholed "certain four-letter word."
• Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption: Potholed rhyming slang.
• VEEP: Fun with Acronyms dirty joke.
• Veronica Mars: Curse Cut Short joke.

Yeah, it's got massive pothole abuse and no really valid examples among the wicks listed. Calling Not A Trope here.

It is absolutely a trope. The misuse is a major issue, though.

"This is an article about the word 'cunt'" doesn't sound like much of a trope to me. :)

The second paragraph is where the meat of the trope is; it's supposed to be about the extreme reaction we Yanks have to people dropping that particular insult. Everyone's getting hung up on the first sentence and not paying attention to anything else that's there. That's why I said from the get-go that there needs to be a major example pruning; the definition also needs to be rewritten to focus on that point...hell, even taking that one opening sentence out would help things.

Covered under Separated by a Common Language