Misused: Gratuitous Greek

The examples for this... are on a completely different paradigm to the rest of the Gratuitous Foreign Language tropes, which seem to indicate a trope for use of foreign language sayings that are phrasal in nature or at least try to convey something, while the Gratuitous Greek consists mostly of examples of the Greek alphabet's letters being used in the names of things without even trying to convey something to a character or audience.

edited 21st May '18 2:13:58 PM by Albert3105

Actually, "the Greek alphabet used in names (or titles) merely because it's a convention" sounds like a trope. Creators use Greek or Latin words and such in names partially because it sounds more official or realistic.

I'd support splitting such examples into their own trope rather than Gratuitous Greek.

^ Agreed wholeheartedly nowadays that Greek letter use is a trope unto its own. Move the alphabet examples to a new trope, and keep the other examples here?

Edited by Albert3105 on Aug 22nd 2018 at 9:32:12 AM

I agree that use of the Greek alphabet is separate from use of Greek itself. In mathematics (pi, anyone?), science, and pop culture (the Mother series comes to mind for that one), Greek letters are used even by people whose native tongues use different writing systems.

What sort of name would we use for "Use of Greek Alphabet"?

Could be Alpha Beta Whatever or Name Alpha or something like that.

That trope already exists as Xtreme Kool Letterz and The Backwards Я.

The former is primarily about cool-looking/sounding Latin letters, though it mentions other writing systems briefly with a link to the latter. The latter mentions Greek letters briefly at the end of the description, though, but it's focused on far less than Cyrillic letters, which is probably why it was overlooked.

Edit: I think the reason the Greek part of The Backwards Я is easy to overlook is partially because of the name and partially because the large focus on individual Cyrillic letters is making the description long. I feel like Analysis would be a better fit for how specific Cyrillic letters are (mis)used, and I think it would be better to point people to Cyrillic Alphabet if they want to know what the Cyrillic alphabet is actually like.

Another edit: After seeing the above post, I should probably say that I think the use of Greek letters without actual Greek words should be moved to The Backwards Я, and Gratuitous Greek should be reserved for Greek words, akin to other Gratuitous Foreign Language tropes. See my next post.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 28th 2018 at 4:25:31 AM

While I agree that The Backwards Я needs its own clean up, I disagree that The Backwards Я is what we're talking about here.

The proposed Alpha Beta Whatever (or whatever name is best for that) is about the letters being used as part of a name or title simply to "sound smart" or to seem more realistic (because RL scientists use Greek letters and mythology a lot).

The Backwards Я is about foreign letters (including Greek letters) as stand-ins for English letters, like sigma being used for E, or like delta being used for A. That's a different trope.

It looks like you're right about The Backwards Я being about replacing Latin letters with similar-looking characters from other writing systems. I was tired when I wrote my original post, which also probably has a lot to do with why it was so long-winded.

Maybe expanding (and possibly renaming) The Backwards Я to include mixing and matching of writing systems in general (instead of just substitutions) would be better than having separate tropes for different kinds of use of non-native characters, since Tropes Are Flexible, and such an expansion could be used for writing systems other than the Greek alphabet for what we're discussing (I'm speaking hypothetically, since the Greek alphabet is the go-to alphabet for non-native characters in non-comedic contexts).

Edit: I think Gratuitous Foreign Writing would be a good name for either what I said above or a new trope about use of non-native characters (the latter of which could possibly be a supertrope to The Backwards Я), even if it's a snowclone of Gratuitous Foreign Language. As for Gratuitous Greek, I think it should be reserved for the language itself and not just the writing system, especially since other languages' speakers' usage of Greek or parts thereof is often transliterated and thus doesn't always overlap with the trope proposal being discussed.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 28th 2018 at 7:21:41 AM

It's a naming trope...? What you're talking about is not that.

I missed that you were talking about names, because Albert's second post and crazysamartian's post didn't mention names specifically. I disagree with limiting it to names, because Greek letters are often used as symbols instead of names or parts of names. I previously mentioned such usage in science and mathematics, which may be the biggest reason why Greek letters are perceived as more intelligent/educated, since Greek loanwords are generally transliterated instead of written with Greek letters.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 29th 2018 at 3:18:46 AM

Actually, I would say that this is a Greek equivalent of Canis Latinicus. Either we can merge the two tropes or we can create a sister trope like Canos Graeca.

I say split it.

I'd think those examples could just go under Canis Latinicus; Tropes Are Flexible.

Stale, closing.