WebVideo.The Obscure: He points out that Liquid Sky uses "punk" to describe what is actually glam rock.
Funny.Atop The Fourth Wall 2023 Episodes 733 To 751: Yugi goes to his grandfather's game shop to find it closed, then flashes back to when Solomon told him he was leaving on a "secret expedition": Yugi: You never told me anything about that! Solomon: [laughs] That's what makes it a secret! Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. Linkara: Yugi's confused because his flight was supposed to have returned last night. Linkara: [as Yugi] And if there's one thing you want to do after a long flight on some kind of expedition, it's open your retail store and deal with customers! [beat] Game customers!
Literature.Night Watch Discworld: When Rust rails that the guards turning on him for being a psychotic arse is mutiny, Vimes corrects him. Soldiers mutiny, and they're not soldiers.
WebVideo.Crossed: In the DOA: Dead or Alive review, Karim points out that the characters constantly use "shinobi" with the meaning of "traitor", while it is in fact just a synonym of "Ninja".
AtopTheFourthWall.Tropes Q To Z: Linkara quickly becomes annoyed at the poorly-defined overuse of the word "Justice" throughout the Justice League: Cry for Justice miniseries. Early in the review, he speculated that the fact they were blatantly just after revenge and calling it justice would be an obvious plot point, but it is never acknowledged in the comic. In the Mr. T #2 review, he rants about writers who use "literally" incorrectly after a character mentions another who "literally burned away" without actually bursting into flames.
Characters.Rurouni Kenshin Rivals And Villains: Espiral refers to Kenshin as the "strongest samurai" despite the fact that Kenshin has never been a part of that social class. As far as he's concerned, all Japanese swordsmen are samurai.
ComicBook.Princeless: Berserk Button: Adrienne's shaping up to be something of a Grammar Nazi. She especially hates it when people misuse the word "fair" to mean "beautiful" rather than "pale," which her family definitely is not. note For the record, though, "fair" could generally mean "beautiful", as shown by the word's etymological history.
ShoutOut.Stargate SG 1: "Origin" has Vala remark that she doesn't think "enlightenment" means what the Priors think it means. Funnily enough the next episode, "The Ties That Bind", features a guest appearance by Wallace Shawn, who played Vizzini in the movie.
Recap.The Simpsons S 14 E 12 Im Spelling As Fast As I Can: At the spelling bee, Bart laughs at a student who spells "acerose" wrong, saying "He's an ass-erose!" Professor Frink asks if he means that he's similar to a pine needle. Bart shrugs off that he's bored and this is all he has to entertain himself.
Music.Jewel: MTV's Kurt Loder once criticized her to her face for confusing "casualty" with "casualness" in one of her poems.
ComicBook.Death Of The Family: Joker is quite willing to point out to Damian that he doesn't really qualify as a "clown", despite being called this frequently.
Creator.Harry Turtledove: Turtledove is fond of this trope, having a doctor discuss the "lay/lie" distinction in The War That Came Early, and has a character reflect on the media's misuse of "impact" to mean "affect" in Supervolcano: Eruption.
Recap.Adventure Time S 2 E 11 The Chamber Of Frozen Blades: A more direct example when Ice King talks to Doctor Princess. Ice King: Without Gunter, I'll be all alone! You see, I'm a widower... Princess: Oh, I'm sorry. How did your wife die? Ice King: Oh, uh, whah? Is that what that means?
VisualNovel.Ace Attorney Investigations Miles Edgeworth: At one point, Prosecutor Portsman claims that there is a "mountain of evidence" pointing away from him. If you press him on this point, however, it turns out his "mountain of evidence" isn't really evidence at all; simply a claim regarding his supposed lack of motive. Edgeworth hangs a lampshade on this: Edgeworth: ... Might I recommend that you review what the word "evidence" means.
Characters.Death Korps Of Justice Krieg: He is exasperated by other people constantly berating him for not acting like a "hero", and repeatedly states that he is a soldier.
Recap.The Adventures Of Puss In Boots S 06 E 04 The Scarlet Panther: As part of his Loss of Identity, Puss decides to start using contractions, but every time he says he's going to he uses a compound word instead, causing Dulcinea to question if he even knows what a contraction is.
WebVideo.The Amazing Atheist: Discussed in a video in which TJ talks about common phrases people use without thinking about what they actually mean. The Amazing Atheist: Here's something people say after some kind of tragedy or things don't turn out as planned, someone will always say, "You know, it is what it is." And it's always with that sage like tone as if we should be in awe of them for taking that common saying and infusing it with such weight and wisdom. It is what it is... yeah it is... IS what it is. Obviously! Of course it is what it is! That's what it is! That is like saying yellow is yellow.
Characters.Homestuck Cherubs: Dirk calls him out on using the word "ironic" to characterize his enjoyment of observing human love and romance, when it's clearly more of a weird Fetish.
Series.Cougar Town: Grayson expresses exasperation at how the rest of the crew keeps flipping the meaning of words; "kicks ass" now means something terrible, and "cakewalk" is something really hard to do.
WebVideo.Casual Geographic: He basically points out how the concept of "alpha wolves" technically don't exist, since wolves are social predators that, no pun intended, are Papa Wolf to their family. An alpha wolf implies a wolf that's low in the wolf pack manages to fight his way up to the social ladder and fight the biggest wolf of them all (his father), but males the would rather hunt with their family as a pack, but not gain control. Putting unrelated wolves in one location however makes them hostile to each other. The only known species of animals that does have such social structure are hyenas, and it's lead by a dominant female (sometimes non-violently).
Film.All About Eve: Margo gets very annoyed when Bill keeps using the word 'paranoiac' to describe her behaviour.
Creator.Robert Rankin: Not Using the "Z" Word: In The Most Amazing Man Who Ever Lived, Gwynplaine D'hark QC is very obviously a vampire (and not even making any attempt to hide it), but the word is never used. Instead, he's described as "one of the undead", a "coffin dweller" and a "necrophile" (though he's rather annoyed by the last one, pointing out that he's not a living person who makes love to corpses, he is a dead person who sucks the life blood of the living.)
Series.Chopped: The contestants may call a dish X but the components may not necessarily fit. It's a big Berserk Button for the judges. So much so that more than a few have been chopped based at least loosely on this issue.
WebVideo.Diamanda Hagan: She fervently believes that "castrate" can also refer to emasculation, to the point where when a minion calls her out on it, she offs him before ordering that the word be redefined in dictionaries to refer to both.
Funny.SF Debris Star Trek Voyager: When Janeway later muses on whether she should just straight up tell Michael the truth and explain to him that "I'm a starship captain and you're a 300 deciwatt holodeck programme." Chuck muses on her choice of words: Chuck: A "deciwatt" is a tenth of a watt. So besides the fact that what she just said was the same as "That oil-change will cost you 300 dimes!", it means that powering his body and personality requires just slightly more wattage than a Hitachi Magic Wand, which never asks you awkward questions and always knows how to find the clitoris on the first try.
WebVideo.Mr Repzion: Discussed in a video where he asked his audience to define feminism. He wasn't sure if he was a feminist, based on the many contrary definitions of feminism posited by many people, so he asked his audience what it was.
Characters.The Heaven Cycle Applicants: Doesn't know what “subtlety” means, much to Jilton's amusement (even gaining a name drop to the film in question) and uses it in a way similar to “cool.”
InfinityTrainBlossomingTrail.Tropes P To Z: Delia admits that for all the time's Ash has said he wants to be a 'Pokemon Master', she's not quite sure what exactly he means, or if he is quite sure what he means by it half the time.
WebVideo.Pat Finnerty: Points out that Train uses "soul sister" in place of "soulmate" because Monahan needs the syllables, even though they do not mean the same thing. “Are we gonna take another thing from these people?!”
Funny.The Dom Reviews 2019 Episodes: Being fully convinced that Ana has gotten to the point where she is actually experiencing full-on hallucinations of her "subconscious" performing the actions she describes.
Hypocrite.Web Original: At the climax of Suburban Knights the Big Bad Malachite, after spending the series killing people for being overly reliant on technology (and unlike most killing on TGWTG. com shows, his actions are NOT played for laughs) and in the middle of declaring his intention to destroy all technology, is interrupted by an utterly trivial call on his iPhone. He is promptly called out on for this, and initially responds by trying to deny that an iPhone counts as technology.Made even more blatant, when he claims that even if the iPhone counts, "At least I'm not a hypocrite." The Critic is so irritated that he has to hand the conversation over to JewWario.
Funny.Death Battle Season Four: After Boomstick describes Renamon as a "stone-cold fox", Wiz tells him the phrase means something else. One Google search later... Boomstick: Oh, come on, like anyone's gonna sexualize a Digimon— (cue fanart of Renamon with enlarged breasts)— OHDEARGODMOVINGON!
Film.Man Of The House 1995: In the intro, Ben describes their new place as a "small loft apartment". While obviously colored by young age and moving from his childhood home, the loft is enormous.
ComicBook.Web Warriors: Lady Spider claims being an empiricist and a scientist are different things and that because he's the latter Spider-Man India struggles to accept or work with situations (e. g. magic based villains) that don't have a known explanation. In reality you can't have science without empiricism as making observations and following evidence is how science comes to understand and explain phenomena in the first place.
WebVideo.Suburban Knights: After [[spoiler: Malachite pauses his "destroy all technology" campaign to answer his smartphone and the Critic calls him an idiot, he replies, "At least I'm not a hypocrite." Critic is so dumbfounded by this response that he has to have Jew Wario take over for him.
Series.The Next Food Network Star: In season 10, Sarah kept using the word "Texas" ad-nauseum to try to describe her food during an audience challenge. Alton and Giada got tired of her using that word and told her "Saying 'Texas' doesn't make your food Texan." They were right: Her dish in question wasn't even remotely Texan.
Catchphrase.Live Action Films: The Princess Bride: Vizzini shouts, "Inconceivable!" whenever something goes happens that he didn't expect. His partner, Inigo Montoya, eventually says, "You Keep Using That Word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Inigo's own catch phrase: "Hello!. My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die." Westley's own "As You Wish," which he even uses to identify himself.
LetsPlay.Videogamedunkey: He calls attention to the announcer from Rocket League's basketball mode, which calls every goal a "Slaaaaaaaaaaaaam dunk!" "NOT EVERY MOVE IS A SLAM DUNK!"
Characters.Ru Pauls Drag Race Season 6: When Gia made her entrance, she called herself "fresh tilapia." As Sharon Needles pointed out in the season recap episode (and Bianca would later point out), that's normally the cheapest fish in the store.
Recap.The Legend Of Korra S 3 E 7 Original Airbenders: Played for Laughs. Early in the episode, someone says "bisons" and Tenzin notes that the plural of bison is actually bison. Most of the new airbenders keep saying "bisons" anyway.
WebVideo.Bad Creepypasta: The phrase "hyper-realistic" gets called out in some of the video game and lost episode creepypastas they've read when they're used in the wrong context. Sometimes they'll read sentences again or put them on the screen (although it's up to the editor) whenever they find sentences or words without any sense, such as "Thankfully rhe screaming stopped" in Tetro and "Gerty and Phil where mentally unstable. This is because of their age." in the Hey Arnold! Theory.
Series.FUBAR: Luke with the word "cuckolding" until he's persuaded to Google it. After finding out what it actually means, he pointedly uses the "My wife's boyfriend" joke to refer to his ex's new man.
Series.Wanda Vision: Hayward repeatedly refers to Wanda as a "terrorist", which Monica says is not accurate for several reasons. 1.) Wanda does not have a political agenda. 2.) She is not using terror as a means to attract attention for any message. On the contrary, she is doing everything she can to hide from everyone outside of Westview. 3.) She is not making any demands of anyone other than "leave me alone" after Hayward tries to kill her and her children with a missile. Calling Wanda a "criminal" or a "supervillain" would be more accurate.
WebVideo.Retsupurae: in the Kaizo Mario 64 videos, they jokingly use "kaizo" an awful lot in many varying contexts. (For the record, it just means "hacked", which nobody can really deny the game in the videos is, no matter how poorly.) slowbeef: I like how he stole 'kaizo', like that's the ubiquitous term for bad romhacks that are more annoying to play than anything.
Webcomic.League Of Super Redundant Heroes: When it's suggested that their new team cave be called "Redundant", Lazer Pony objects that this would only make sense if they had another cave they weren't using right now. As it so happens, they do.
Film.Teen Wolf The Movie: Deaton corrects their understanding of Bardo: Deaton: Bardo is a Tibetan word, it’s a means of interpreting death and the movements of consciousness between physical states of being. It’s just a word, it’s a concept.
Fanfic.Fours A Party: Taylor says this in regards to Amy's repeated threats to give her all the cancer.
Funny.Todd In The Shadows 2018 Episodes: Todd points out that the Title Drop in "Lucid Dreams" makes it evident that Juice Wrld doesn't actually know what a lucid dream is. He goes on to explain that a lucid dream is a dream you know is a dream and that you can control, whereas Juice Wrld describes a dream wherein he "can't move a thing" meaning that it is really just a regular dream: Todd: Of course he doesn't know that, because he's a fucking kid. He can't even drink yet. I mean, that's a pretty big error, right? It's the title of the song! It's like if Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote their Alabama song, and then accidentally called it "Sweet Home Massachusetts".
Literature.Guards Guards: The Brethren's oath is full of words their leader just thought sounded suitably impressive without meaning anything; he's rather amused that they all take it very seriously and never ask what they mean. A footnote then explains that they're all real words on the Discworld and defines them, rendering the oath utter gibberish. Roasting someone's figgin (a pastry stuffed with raisins) becomes a running gag for the rest of the series.
Creator.B Dylan Hollis: The "Glorified Rice" recipe says to "gently" cool down the cooked rice ("Opposed to what?! What am I gonna use, a leaf blower?") and to "gently" whip cream ("How do you gently whip cream, you tart? It's like saying gently have a car accident!").
Music.The Megas: Mega Man and Proto Man argue from different definitions of free will, and Proto Man at one point accuses Mega Man of being disingenuous or outright self-deluded: This thing you call your will / I call a ruse.
YMMV.The Nostalgia Critic: Critic's depressed complaining in BloodRayne about the tradition he's forced to do (have Linkara and Spoony review an Uwe Boll movie with him) is treated as such, with Tamara/Malcolm being tired of it and Linkara/Spoony forcing him to slapstick with a pie in the face. It doesn't help that You Keep Using That Word is in play. It'd be better if he was just depressed about Pandering to the Base, as “I did an Uwe Boll movie with Linkara and Spoony once and have to do it again” does not a tradition make.
Recap.Parks And Recreation S 03 E 11: Andy thinks it's cute that April doesn't clean and they eat off frisbees with one plastic fork between them. Ben even lampshades it. Ben: Do you even know what 'cute' means?!
Series.Real Time With Bill Maher: Maher's editorial of October 30, 2021 was a rant against people from his own side (i. e. leftwingers) continually redefining words such as "hate", "victim", "hero", "shame", "violence", "survivor", "phobic", and "white supremacy" in an attempt to rewrite reality. Maher: Word inflation is a problem. You can try to change reality by changing the words, but you can't. It just stops you from dealing with it.
Characters.Bang Dream Hello Happy World: She's usually the most to call out Kaoru's excessive use of the word "fleeting" without really knowing what it means.
YMMV.The Princess Bride: Besides giving us "You Keep Using That Word", Inigo gave us the most trope-heavy statement ever: "Hello!. My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die." It's also become something of a rite of passage for young geeks and nerds to see the film, so very geek-heavy cultures tend to know all the best lines from the work. It's gotten to the point where some LARP groups have a rule against making quotes from the work, because once one person starts, everyone quotes it.
ComicBook.Daredevil Charles Soule: In-universe. Jennifer claims another lawyer "literally" drowned her in paperwork, then corrects herself, saying that she hates when people misuse the word "literally."
Fanfic.Erutcarf: Turns out the reason that the Omni-Viewer keeps introducing himself as "Omnipotent" is because he was misinformed on the word’s definition. When he questions why no one informed earlier, Porker admits they just thought he was just that full of himself.
ComicBook.The Spectacular Spider Man: Spider-Man calls Ironheart a millennial, but (at least at the time of publication due to Marvel's sliding timeline) Peter Parker is the millennial and Riri Williams is a member of Generation Z.
Characters.Hades Cthonic Gods: Today we associate "chaos" and "chaotic" with energetic, violent, disordered imagery. Chaos in the Greek sense meant the vast, empty, infinite void — this difference in connotation is remarked on by Chaos, whom only Ares still pays (the wrong) homage to. He still worships me, you know; yet, I would say he does not know me very well.
Fanfic.Death Korps Of Justice: The Justice League and the Team whine that a "hero" shouldn't treat criminals the way Krieg does. They seem to forget (or ignore) Krieg's repeated insistence that he is NOT a hero, but a soldier.
LetsPlay.HC Bailly: He has lampshaded this trope multiple times during his Let's Plays, when people says "Inconceivable", "Impossible", "Incomprehensible" or similar words that reflect the same meaning.
Characters.Back To The Future Brown Family: At least from Doc's point of view in 1955, as he thinks that Marty's use of the word "heavy" still applies to weight and measurements — when, from Marty's point of view, he's just using the slang term for something that has a deep, powerful impact, whether philosophical, intellectual, or emotional.
Funny.My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Season 7: Applejack's You Keep Using That Word moment to Lily Lace's frequent use of "literally," especially for just how much Truth in Television it is: Lily Lace: You can thank Applejack. She literally did it all by herself. Applejack: I don't think that word means what you think it means.
Literature.White Teeth: Both in- and out-of-universe with the term "Aryan." Smith uses it to denote both the olive-skinned Eurasian peoples who colonized India thousands of years ago and the more contemporary sense of the pink-skinned peoples who populate Europe, Australia, and much of the Americas today. This gets lampshaded when Samad scolds Alsana for acting too "Western" and she responds by pulling out an encyclopedia entry on Bangladesh that confirms that Bengalis are an Indo-Aryan people, and thus Western in the first place.
WebVideo.Resident Evil Abridged: Rebecca calls out Chris and Richard when they said Yawn the snake was "poisonous", when it is "venomous".
Series.The Last Leg: The 2017 season naturally made reference to Donald Trump, like one story about Trump's outrageous demands for a state visit: Adam: His people have asked for a "full monty" visit. (Beat as audience laughs) I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.
WebVideo.Biden And The Gang: In "Biden & the Gang Play UNO," Biden claims that "cracker," (a slur for white people) means "buddy."
JustForFun.Everybody Knows That: The Princess Bride "Hello!. My Name Is Inigo Montoya. You Killed My Father. Prepare to Die." "INCONCEIVABLE!" "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." "Have fun storming the castle." "I am not left-handed." Assssss Youuuuuu Wishhhhhh André the Giant was in it "Humperdinck Humperdinck Humperdinck" "They're kissing again. Do we have to hear the kissing part?"
SelfDemonstrating.Malaproper: Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served? claimed that the primordial ooze had "little orgasms" floating round. She called the Caribbean the "Caribbeano" and "apoplectic" was "apoploptic". She's also in the habit of using the words "obstropulus" and "igni-moan-ius" Don't forget her being "unanimous" in all her opinions. Technically true, but... After the UK's conversion to metric, she told Ms. Brahms that everything was measured in centipedes. "But I would ask you to remember that Parliament has passed the Sexual Relations Act, which states that women are just as good at it as men!"
Film.Religulous: During an interview with a United States Senator who believes in creationism, he uses the word "indigous", which the subtitles note isn't really a word (he was probably thinking of "indigenous").
WebVideo.Kwentong Takipsilim: In recent episodes, "demonyo" (literally "demon") is used almost Once an Episode, either as an insult or referring to actual evil spirits.
Funny.Pokemon Vietnamese Crystal: Pretty much everything Silver says. WHAT DON'T STARE ME ALWAYS YOU HAD GAINED MONATERS FROM GRADUATE SCHOOL What he says when you defeat him for the first time. I AM... I Am a Monster COACH. The entirety of the "trashy man" speech. His rant in Mahogany Town's Rocket Hideout is also quite noteworthy. OUR LOVE MUST BECOME STRENGTH. I DON'T LIKE THE ACTOR'S LINES.
Film.Labyrinth: When Sarah tells Jareth the Labyrinth is "a piece of cake", he proceeds to magically reduce her remaining time to solve it. Sarah: That's not fair! Jareth: You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is.
WebVideo.Two Best Friends Play: Video 28 of Nier reveals that Pat is mildly aggravated by people's misuse of the word "sentient". He notes that while it means having the ability to use the five senses, people often misuse it to mean being able to think and reason about the world around you. The intended word is '"sapient". He adds that even Star Trek misuses "sentient".
Series.The New Adventures Of Old Christine: When old Christine kept bringing up how she thought she was racist she was told not to use the word until she learns what it means.
Characters.Star Wars Rebel Cells: Lampshaded by Sabine. "Squadron" is usually used to refer to a team of ships, like Phoenix Squadron, but Iron Squadron is actually just a group in one ship. This is because Mart named it after the original Iron Squadron, his late father's military unit.
WebVideo.Cinema Sins: Basic Instinct has this sinned a lot due to the Anti-Hero's very awful practices, lots of his detective friends do the same. Everyone knows about the fact he is sleeping with the therapist, attacks his coworkers, nobody seems to know what alibi really means. The iconic interrogation scene is sinned for the fact that a group of trained cops shouldn't be unable to guide an interrogation like that and command absolutely no respect from the main suspect of the murder.
Characters.Zap Dramatic: Perfectly Cromulent Word: In "The Mediator Episode 1: The Angry Neighbors", Sonia calls Jim out on making up the words "planticide" and "vindicative", then accuses him of not knowing what he means by the latter. Jim: "I know what 'vindicated' means. I've got the scar."
