Duplicate Trope: The Big List of Booboos and Blunders

As I mentioned on ATT a few hours ago:

I'm noticing a lot of overlap between Rouge Angles of Satin, You Keep Using That Word, and The Big List of Booboos and Blunders.

I'm thinking Rouge Angles is spelling and/or confusion of words with similar spelling (abject/object, accept/except, cajones/cojones), while YKUTW is grammatical misuse of words (addicting/addictive, comprise/compose, rob/steal). It's not listed on Canonical Trope Distinctions, so how should this be handled?

(Clarification from my original ATT post: American vs. British cases such as "two thousand and fifteen"/"two thousand fifteen" aren't technically errors and would probably go on either Separated by a Common Language or a Useful Notes page detailing the differences.)

(EDIT: Please set the thread title to "Rouge Angles of Satin/You Keep Using That Word/Booboos and Blunders overlap" or something to that effect.)

edited 21st Mar '15 9:29:57 AM by bwburke94

• Rouge Angles of Satin: is using words that are spelled similar (and are often homophones) in place of the proper word. It's a trope.
• You Keep Using That Word: Is people accusing other people of incorrectly using words wrong even though technically they aren't.
• The Big List of Booboos and Blunders: Is a helpful list of common grammatical mistakes for writers and should really be a useful note.

No overlap in any of them.

There's no overlap on the tropes, just on the pages. And I object to your statement that You Keep Using That Word is only for incorrect accusations, because there's nothing on the page that indicates that, and if it were about accusations then it would be In Universe Examples Only.

edited 21st Mar '15 10:49:49 AM by bwburke94

It's ok if something is an example of multiple similar tropes. In fact, it's completely normal. If there's misuse, clean it up.

This—sometimes a situation or character or what-have-you fits multiple tropes for the same reason, and the same context explains both—for example, an example of Apocalypse Wow might also provide context for an example of Colony Drop. The write-ups don't necessarily need to be written differently, but they should be reviewed on their own merits, not just "Oh hey this is a duplicate example".

The big question is, does this example actually explain how it fits the trope? If so, it doesn't matter if it happens to be a duplicate of a write-up provided on a different trope.

Huh. Do we need this thread? I don't see any actionable issue here.

That's actually a good question. But since we're trying to settle exactly what You Keep Using That Word is, I guess that's the actionable thing.

Well, for starters, apparently You Keep Using That Word is Real Life Examples Only Please, which doesn't make sense—if that's the case, it should also be Useful Notes. It mentions In-Universe uses—and then claims that those are Delusions of Eloquence or Malaproper. I think the solution is to make it a Useful Notes page.

Not to mention, its laconic is terrible. The trope description is pretty explicit about how it's about insisting on one particular definition of a word over another one, both of them being technically correct. The Laconic is just "You Keep Using That Word... incorrectly."

YKUTW is an Useful Note, ain't it?

Nope. But it should be, I think, considering its purely factual content and total lack of examples.

edited 25th Mar '15 3:46:44 PM by SolipSchism

Should a crowner be added to make YKUTW a Useful Note?

I'd vote in favor.

Bump.

So here's the question: Is YKUTW a useful note or not?

Yes, IMO.

Whatever the decision, I fixed the Laconic for YKUTW.

I have to question that, since above I mentioned that based on the examples, this isn't actually a trope in the sense that it refers to a situation or tropeable concept. It's just a list of words that are commonly misused, or claimed to be misused even if they're being used correctly. So the "Someone insists" bit doesn't really seem to apply here.

based it on the trope description. And someone is insisting, even if it's just J Random Internet-Poster making a post to say "Arrrrrghhhh you're using that word wrong."

Personally, I think it should be made into a Trope with In-universe examples only (something like "A character insists that another character is using a word wrong, when they aren't really; they're just using a general definition instead of a technical one ("It's only 'electrocution' if it's 1)fatal and 2)used as a form of execution!"), or an old, archaic, or the original definition ("Look, 'decimate' doesn't mean 'destroy a large part of'. It means 'to kill every tenth one'.") and the other page, The Big List, should be cut. They're both vaguely interesting if you like nitpicking, but not particularly useful, and there are whole websites devoted to the subject.

edited 4th May '15 10:30:50 AM by Madrugada

I'd be down for that. Although perhaps we could link to one of those sites, since I do find that list to be an entertaining read. I get that that's not really part of the site's mission, though.

It sounds like this thread was discussing three tropes. (I use was because of the lack of conversation )

• The Big List of Booboos and Blunders — which needs to become a Useful Notes, and needs some cleaning for natter, This Troper, and Example Indentation, but is otherwise acceptable.
• Rouge Angles of Satin — a similar trope, but instead of listing the errors, it should be cleaned up to show examples of those errors in fiction. ("General Examples" is the main offense on this page)
• You Keep Using That Word — this trope has some debate, is it
  • A Useful Notes about word definitions
  • A trope of In Universe Examples Only where "A character insists that another character is using a word wrong, when there's a reasonable meaning to be derived instead."

Am I the only one who thinks that You Keep Using That Word has a very confusing name?

To begin with, it's a Stock Phrase, whish is frowned upon.

But what's worse is that that stock phrase makes at least me think of a situation where Alice is using a word in the wrong way, and Bob points it out, and Bob is right. But the trope is about the case where Bob is mistaken and Alice is, in fact, using the word correctly.

Maybe the person who named the trope was being ironic and sophisticated, turning a meme inside-out as it were, but I can't help thinking of that scene from The Princess Bride and then have to remind myself that this trope is about its subversion.

And yes, I know that the trope having a bad name is not in itself a reason to rename it. I haven't done any wick check to see if it's actually being misused. I just wanted to vent a little :)

edited 16th Nov '15 8:41:18 AM by GnomeTitan

"Alice using a word and Bob telling her she's using it wrong" seems like a reasonable trope, but I don't really see why we need the Sub-Trope case of "but Bob is wrong". I don't really see the point of pointing out that distinction unless there's a way to make that version significantly different from the former.

I agree about the Stock Phrase problem with the trope, but I haven't really done an analysis of the page to see if it's been frequently used as the supertrope version or not.

I also don't really see why we need "But Bob is wrong" as a trope (it could be viewed as The Same But More Specific case of Know-Nothing Know-It-All, I suppose) but the page is a decent Useful Note.

The trope isn't necessarily about either, is it?

Locking as part of New Years Purge.