Suggested Example Sectionectonomy: Lickspittle

There's some merit in having this page exist, but examples are by definition insulting people.

Limit it to examples in-work.

• "The forum-dwellers at X author's forum" are not examples from Comic Books.

• The character "The Wizard" in the 2005 TV version of Once Upon A Mattress is an example in Theatre

edited 19th Dec '10 4:00:40 PM by Madrugada

Pretty much the same thing we did with the troll article? Sounds fine with me.

Yes. It worked there. And the Lickspittle is an old, established character type — it goes back to Roman comedy.

edited 19th Dec '10 5:20:37 PM by Madrugada

What Madrugada said. Valid trope, just cut the non-fiction examples.

We already have Yes-Man. I can see a slight difference but it's debateable, nah not really, they're synonymous to me but for a matter of degree. I'm not sure it distinctly resolvable and let's not even pretend that that debate gets dealt with by the page.

We have zero description talking about the trope and just barely enough examples. I can think of a couple more but I would rather put it through YKTTW where we can get a decent description.

I would happily nuke it from orbit. We get it, they don't like these fandoms because they Gush. It's like if someone took the second bullet point natter from gushing and gave it its own page.

edited 20th Dec '10 12:15:56 PM by SomeSortOfTroper

Lickspittle goes beyond Yes Manning. A Yes man is a person employed to agree with the boss. The lickspittle is a servile fawning associate, not necessarily an employee — often simply a hanger-on — who not only agrees with the subject of their focus, but often does everything in their power to weaken or attack the rivals or opponents of the focus. It's not uncommon for them to also be a hypocrite, and secretly despise the person they are lickspittle to.

Yes, that's what I was thinking and then re-edited to say I think that's The Same But More. The Yes-Man does nothing but agree with his boss. The lickspittle agrees with everything about the boss.

If I were to put it the other way around- we have Lickspittle and we want to split off the type that just agrees and sucks up less so and more verbally- i think it would be less likely to happen.

Hmm. If we have Yes-Man, we probably don't need both. They're not different enough to merit two different tropes, IMO.

I think what he's saying is that a Yes-Man just sucks up to someone because they're his boss, while a Lick Spittle genuinely agrees with that person.

The name isn't very intuitive. Where did a name like that come from?

Perhaps this could do with a rename, or at least some redirects which are at least somewhat obvious.

It's actually quite an old, well-established term for this sort of person.

It's been around since at least 1825. Same basic premise as "bootlicker"; someone who is so sycophantic and fawning that they would do anything, no matter how distasteful, for their patron.

And a Lickspittle doesn't have to agree or like the patron. In many works, he doesn't like them at all, he's simply riding along on their wealth, power, or position.

edited 21st Dec '10 7:20:11 AM by Madrugada

Well I see how that's distinct from a Yes-Man (who does nothing besides giving the answers their boss wants), but then wouldn't this be the same thing as a Professional Butt-Kisser?

As I read Professional Butt-Kisser, the important part of that one is his ability to switch to a new patron at a moment's notice.

Here are the various dictionary definitions of Lickspittle:

• A fawning underling; a toady. (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2010)
• A flattering or servile person (Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged)
• An abject flatterer or parasite. (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913)
• A fawning subordinate; toady (Merriam Webster Online)
• a contemptible, fawning person; a servile flatterer or toady. (Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Dictionary )
• One who is abject enough to lick, as it were, another's spittle; a vulgar flatterer or parasite. (Century Dictionary)
• Websters Online Dictionary:

1. . A toady, sycophant, spaniel, groveller or yes-man.
2. . A flunkey or lackey.
3. . A lapdog.
4. . A reptile or creeper.
5. . A flatterer or courtier.

If you look at those, all of them emphasize the despicable view that this type of person is generally regarded with. It's not just that they do it; it's that they're just so obvious about it that others regard them with disdain.

To keep this off the subjectives list, though, it should probably be emphasised that this disdain is an in-universe thing.

Oh, indeed. I completely agree with that. It could even be that the character despises himself for doing it.

edited 21st Dec '10 3:39:55 PM by Madrugada

As stated earlier in the thread, this is a characterization that is, by definition, deeply insulting to the person to whom it's applied. And yet, roughtly 90% of the examples are either real life individuals or more often sweeping generalizations of entire groups.

There are 58 lines of examples right now. 51 of them are simply taking shots at a group the editor doesn't like.

Any objection to rewriting the definition so that it is not focused on web presence and actually deals with the character type in fiction, and limiting examples to in-work only?

edited 6th Aug '11 6:32:13 PM by Madrugada

Yes, please. A lot of the examples come across as Complaining About Fanbases You Don't Like, which seems slightly off-mission.

I think the problem is that it is listed on the index for online personalities only, so that kind of led it down a particular path. If it is going to remain an Online Persona trope then I suggest an example section-ectomy on it (and frankly every single other article on that index too, why do we even have that these days?). If we re-purpose/re-write it to reflect the real-world meaning we should remove it from that index.

edited 6th Aug '11 7:05:27 PM by CrypticMirror

I've got no issues with that sort of thing.

It should not be an "online personality". That's part of my point. It's a character type that's been around since at least the Enlightenment era, and probably goes back to Greek or Roman times. We're ignoring a perfectly good, wonderfully old trope in favor of a page full of insults aimed at fandoms someone doesn't like, and then having the gall to claim that it's something that's only as old as the internet, to boot.

We already have Yes-Man for that character type. I think Lickspittle should be cut, since it serves no purpose other than to insult real people.

edited 7th Aug '11 1:17:51 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

As I said in Post 7 and again in post 15, a lickspittle is not simply a Yes-Man.

So this is a Weasel Yes-Man? Like Dwight on The Office.