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Vidor Since: Nov, 2009
#876: Jul 10th 2011 at 3:03:57 PM

"Why should we come up with a term used nowhere else instead of using the existing term"

To increase comprehensibility for all readers. Using obscure Japanese titles does not make us less insular. This is incorrect. Most users who come to a page and see "Zettai Ryouiki" among a list of tropes are not going to have any idea what it means. Change the name to a descriptive English name—Knee High Socks—and your average reader will understand what you are talking about.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#877: Jul 10th 2011 at 3:08:52 PM

@Juan Carlos: "Psychotic" does not mean what you're using it for; and we already have Mad Love, which is still different from Yandere.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
RainyDaze Eheheh... from UK Since: Jul, 2010
Eheheh...
#878: Jul 10th 2011 at 3:09:20 PM

Knee High Socks is both likely to stop counting AND misses the skirt length portion of the trope entirely. The problem isn't just coming up with an English title but one that is usable, has more clarity than what it replaces, and fits the whole trope. Otherwise there's no point to it.

Now collecting White-Haired Pretty Girls.
SakurazakiSetsuna Together Forever... Since: Jun, 2010
Together Forever...
#879: Jul 10th 2011 at 3:46:56 PM

[up][up][up]

Except Zettai Ryouiki does not mean "Knee-high socks".

If you can't bother to actually learn what the trope means, don't try to argue that the title should be changed!

Night The future of warfare in UC. from Jaburo Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
The future of warfare in UC.
#880: Jul 10th 2011 at 6:07:53 PM

As noted, it's actually "knee-high socks and short skirt create area of exposed skin between them" not "knee-high socks".

Which is rather long for a trope. If you can come up with a superior way to phrase this, you may have an argument.

Nous restons ici.
Sackett Since: Jan, 2001
#881: Jul 10th 2011 at 8:31:41 PM

And actually it's more often thigh highs rather then knee highs.

There's this whole ranking system and associated tropes and...

Sigh, why is it no one actually reads the tropes before suggesting renaming them?

PS: There actually is a TRS thread currently discussing Zettai Ryouiki, perhaps it would be better to go into more detail there.

Can we at least agree that each foreign named trope needs to be assessed individually instead of having a blanket ban on them?

edited 10th Jul '11 8:40:37 PM by Sackett

chihuahua0 Since: Jul, 2010
SilentReverence adopting kitteh from 3 tiles right 1 tile up Since: Jan, 2010
adopting kitteh
#883: Jul 10th 2011 at 10:32:59 PM

...Seriously, can someone expand on the "English-only wiki" part? (not the "English-only names" part; I have already stated my opinion on that). Last time I checked, teh internets were international, and visitors from anywhere, in any language, would land in either the home page or an (likely) Enlish-named trope page, without any clear indication whatsoever that there is any effort to internationalize, making the english-written versions the de facto content for all languages. So using "only English-speaking people can see English pages" argument is durr hurr, if at least because of a pending technical issue.

And that's one thing I can say We Are Not Wikipedia about, unfortunately.

Fanfic Recs orwellianretcon'd: cutlocked for committee or for Google?
juancarlos Faith in the self. Since: Mar, 2012
Faith in the self.
#884: Jul 10th 2011 at 10:35:08 PM

Because, whether you like or not, the world's lingua franca is English.

"My life is my own" | If you want to contact me privately, please ask first on the forum.
SakurazakiSetsuna Together Forever... Since: Jun, 2010
Together Forever...
#885: Jul 10th 2011 at 11:17:03 PM

[up]

Was that intentional?

juancarlos Faith in the self. Since: Mar, 2012
Faith in the self.
#886: Jul 10th 2011 at 11:21:37 PM

Yes.

"My life is my own" | If you want to contact me privately, please ask first on the forum.
SilentReverence adopting kitteh from 3 tiles right 1 tile up Since: Jan, 2010
Osmium from Germany Since: Dec, 2010
#888: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:21:12 AM

@883 I am not sure what your point is. The Pages are of course visible to every visitor indipendent of their language abilities. But this is true for a lot pages on the internet.

Our English pages should of course be aimed at people speaking english, because everything else would be rather stupid. There is an effort to translate this wiki to other languages and this pages are aimed at peoiple speaking the language in question. Writing page in German aimed at people speaking only French would be useless, like writing a page in english aimed at people not speaking english. You can't write a page in a way everyone in this world indipendent of their language skills understand (maybe you can use some pictograms, but that is not what we are doing here)

Are you complaining that the translation effort is not visible to the casual visitor? This is actually an important point, but I think this should be discussed in an other thread, because it is not the topic here.

SakurazakiSetsuna Together Forever... Since: Jun, 2010
Together Forever...
#889: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:26:05 AM

I wouldn't mind someone explaining how an unknown foreign language word is any different from an unknown English word.

Especially considering that we are discussing a language with a truly enormous number of lonewords to begin with, where very rarely can you determine the meaning of an unknown word just by looking at it.

Catalogue A pocketful of saudade. from where the good times are Since: Sep, 2009
A pocketful of saudade.
#890: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:41:28 AM

Provided that the two words (obscure English and obscure foreign) have more or less the same level of precision, it's just natural that the English one must take precedence. In our German/French mirror, this applies to their respective common tongue.

If one is more precise than the other, well, we take the more precise one.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.
SakurazakiSetsuna Together Forever... Since: Jun, 2010
Together Forever...
#891: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:45:03 AM

[up]

That wasn't the question I asked.

Catalogue A pocketful of saudade. from where the good times are Since: Sep, 2009
A pocketful of saudade.
#892: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:48:53 AM

Hmmm. Can you elaborate then?

edited 11th Jul '11 2:51:51 AM by Catalogue

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.
SakurazakiSetsuna Together Forever... Since: Jun, 2010
Together Forever...
#893: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:50:00 AM

You run across an unknown word. What difference does it make what language it technically belongs to?

Catalogue A pocketful of saudade. from where the good times are Since: Sep, 2009
A pocketful of saudade.
#894: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:51:27 AM

Ninja'd.

Here: If one is more precise than the other, we must use that, regardless of whether it's English or Arabic. If they're about the same level, English takes precedence.

So, why should we pick an obscure English word over an obscure foreign word? Well, is the foreign one more precise? If not, we use English. Seems straightforward to me.

Case by case, from my prespective:

1 - Tsundere or Hot-and-Cold? Tsundere is more precise. Use Tsundere.
2 - Hero or Held? Same precision. Use Hero.

edited 11th Jul '11 2:55:42 AM by Catalogue

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.
SakurazakiSetsuna Together Forever... Since: Jun, 2010
Together Forever...
#895: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:53:05 AM

[up]

Again, you are dodging my question.

Catalogue A pocketful of saudade. from where the good times are Since: Sep, 2009
A pocketful of saudade.
#896: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:56:49 AM

I feel I've answered it. The difference is in an English wiki English words must take precedence unless the foreign term is more precise.

edited 11th Jul '11 2:57:29 AM by Catalogue

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.
CyganAngel Away on the wind~ from Arcadia Since: Oct, 2010
Away on the wind~
#897: Jul 11th 2011 at 2:56:59 AM

Because the readers read English.

We aim for consistency. If the articles are all written in English, writing a title in French when there is a serviceable English alternative to the word is inconsistent.

There are too many toasters in my chimney!
SakurazakiSetsuna Together Forever... Since: Jun, 2010
Together Forever...
#898: Jul 11th 2011 at 3:00:01 AM

Again, not the question I want an answer to.

Osmium from Germany Since: Dec, 2010
#899: Jul 11th 2011 at 3:02:27 AM

What use is a super precise word, if I can't understand it? And have a really hard time to remember or write correctly?

The Thing That Goes Doink is not as precise as Shishi-odoshi, but the term is way more helpful to me than this random string of letters, I would never be able to remember.

edited 11th Jul '11 3:09:07 AM by Osmium

CyganAngel Away on the wind~ from Arcadia Since: Oct, 2010
Away on the wind~
#900: Jul 11th 2011 at 3:04:23 AM

-sigh-

It is different because no word is 'unknown'. There are people who are aware of it- aware enough to add it to a dictionary at the very least.

Therefore, statistically speaking there is a higher chance a random English-speaker will know what the obscure English term means than the obscure foreign term.

There are too many toasters in my chimney!

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