Snowclone: Upper Class Wit

"an upper-class person who happened to be exceptionally witty. " That's Gentleman Snarker. Upperclass Wit == Upperclass Twit + intelligence. Therefore, any examples missing the Idle Rich part of Upperclass Twit is misuse. Because tropers are likely to mistake Upperclass Wit for Gentleman Snarker, and the only distinction between them is their Idle Rich status (Gentleman snarker is not required to be Idle Rich or a Non-Idle Rich, but Wit is required to be Idle Rich), any use of Upperclass Wit for Non-Idle Rich is misuse.

39 total examples from the page itself. 24 counts of Idle Rich, including ZCE that I couldn't determine the validity of. That's 15/39 misuse, or 38% misuse for Non-Idle Rich.

See, I read all that and all that went through my head is that this seems way too overly complicated. I just went on the Upper-Class Twit page. What do I expect from a page with that title? "Upper class person who is unintelligent" (which the laconic page seems to agree with). What do I get? "In other words, he was a Spoiled Brat as a child, and now he has no reason to contribute to society, which is just as well, since he doesn't have the skills to contribute anyway. More often than not, he leads a hedonistic lifestyle that embarrasses his family. Highly prone to Conspicuous Consumption." That seems way too specific—unless these traits are intended as potential traits for a person of this archetype rather than being required, it just seems like it's pinning a whole bunch of characterization on an archetype that is much simpler than whoever made the page is making it out to be. I can't think of a legitimate reason to define it that way rather than to just overly complicate it. (EDIT: And, now that I think of it, that trope as it is currently defined seems The Same But More Specific as Idle Rich, which isn't exactly the kind of tropery we encourage here.) Same thing for 'Wit.

As for Gentleman Snarker, the impression I get from that is a man who considers himself worldly who engages in polite-sounding mockery or something like that. Not "rich person is witty." I don't even know how one could get that from that.

edited 10th Dec '13 2:31:06 AM by Odd1

"unless these traits are intended as potential traits for a person of this archetype rather than being required"

That's exactly what they are. The trope is "Upper class person is an idiot", the things described there are reasons for that stereotype to exist — privileged upbringing, nepotistic career, protection from "real life", Screw the Rules, I Have Money!, etc.

They're usually a specific kind of idiot — well-educated and socially able but but devoid of common sense, awareness or analytical intelligence. So yeah, the description should ideally make it clear the differences between necessary and sufficient conditions, and commonly-associated but not necessary traits.

EDIT: Actually, looking at the page I think the description of Upper-Class Twit is fine. It's not a complicated trope, really, the problem only comes when people try to define more complex tropes in terms of their relationship to this one. I don't see how this has anything to do with Upper-Class Wit except the "upper-class" bit — if anything, they're Opposite Tropes. An Upper-Class Wit is usually Idle Rich, but by no means a "twit".

edited 10th Dec '13 3:22:21 AM by johnnye

Most of Upperclass Twit's description is on how an Idle Rich character can be so stupid and have a job. It wouldn't hurt to have a cleaner description, but it doesn't need one.

As you both have determined, Wit is defined as "Twit, but smart". Most of the difference is given as a Wit (the later trope) being witty in conversation, and pulling pranks on people for their own amusement. Twit defines the Wit to be "the same", except Brilliant, but Lazy.

The misuse I looked for was characters on the Wit page that were not Idle Rich. If a character isn't an Idle Rich, they cannot be a Twit, and Wit is defined as being otherwise like the Twit. So any Non-Idle Rich character wasn't Brilliant, but Lazy, they're simply Brilliant.

Gentleman Snarker, on the other hand, has the requirements of wealth and snark. They're an upper class character with "wit", meaning humour. Mastering the Stealth Insult in addition to just being ungentlemanly rude to people.

So Gentleman Snarker is not an Opposite trope to Upperclass Twit simply because the Gentleman is not defined as being Idle. They may or may not be Idle, but there is no requirement either way. Upperclass Wit is an opposite trope because the Wit is intelligent, where the Twit is foolish. Both remain Idle Rich.

I'm sorry, but the way you're explaining this, I feel like you're trying to teach me calculus.

The Idle Rich are people that just spend their time living off of vast sums of money. They have much of their free time taken up by travelling, going to parties and galas, attending horse races and polo matches, keeping up with the latest Society gossip, choosing which clothes to wear, spoiling Mister Muffykins rotten, and occasionally doing at least some token work in their family business.

Got that?

I think I'm just gonna bow out of this discussion here, sorry.

"Wit is defined as "Twit, but smart"."

Yeah, that makes no sense. The words "wit" and "twit" are practically incompatible, if not direct opposites. A twit might be a joker (Bertie Wooster, for example), but not witty, because wit is intelligent humour; far more likely, they're the butt of the joke.

I know I'm talking about the words themselves and not the tropes here, but if the definition of the trope is that far divorced from the definition of the word, it's got a bad name.

Which is why I've been saying this needs cutting.

At best, it can be a redirect to Gentleman Snarker, which is a broader archetype, and not a snowcloned name.

Right, sorry, mistook your meaning.

I just think the two tropes are too similar to both need to exist. If anything I'd lean towards folding them both into Upper-Class Wit, but if we can get it over with by agreeing to fold them into Gentleman Snarker, that'll do.

They are too similar. Upperclass Wit is defined as being an Idle Rich in addition to snark. It has collected severe misuse. From what you've said, Bertie Wooster is an example of a Twit, not a Wit. But Bertie is on the Wit page.

Wit isn't necessarily snark, though. That's the major objection I have to folding them together. Lord Peter Wimsey is an Upper-Class Wit for example, but he's not particularly snarky. Snark has a large element of deprecation or sarcasm that wit doesn't require.

Intelligence isn't always snark, I agree. But the current definition is "intelligent Idle Rich character", where most of the intelligence is suggested to be in the realm of witty conversation and pranks (the former is provided by a Gentleman Snarker), and the examples have collected 38% misuse for Non-Idle Rich characters, even assuming a ZCE is correct.

That's why my preference is cut. The definition has not been followed, the primary use of the page is covered by an existing trope, the name does not match the primary misuse, and the name is a snowclone.

edited 10th Dec '13 2:23:37 PM by crazysamaritan

Crazysamaritan, I think you're making too fine distinctions here, and have too narrow a view of class. Bringing in the Idle Rich into these two tropes is a mistake, since the Idle Rich is a specific form of upper class people in most cultures, but by no means the majority of them. What is considered upper class also varies from culture to culture.

So the Upper-Class Wit has most of the elements of the Upper-Class Twit, but has plenty of smarts.

What characterises the Gentleman Snarker is a specific type of snark - the most stylish, subtle, and above all polite snarks. This is not tied to any class, but uses the modern definiton of "gentleman".

Now, being able to be a Gentleman Snarker is part of what makes for a great Upper-Class Wit, but you can easily have a Gentleman Snarker who isn't an Upper-Class Wit. Vetinari of Discworld, Bilbo Baggins, Captain von Trapp are all gentlemen snarkers, but can hardly fit into Upper-Class Wit.

The three characters you mention are all "upper class". Class does not exclude them from being an Upperclass Wit.

I'm not sure what you mean by me "Bringing in the Idle Rich into these two tropes". Can you explain?

Even if they come at the trope from slightly different angles, there's no escaping that the thing they're describing overlaps hugely. Gentleman Snarker is about "people who snark in a gentlemanly way" and Upper-Class Wit "Gentlemen who snark".

Which is, I suppose, a good argument for having Gentleman Snarker be the one we keep, as it has a slightly broader definition. But I still don't find it a convincing argument for keeping both tropes.

Johnnye, "wit" and "snark" are not the same thing.

I'd probably agree with you if it weren't for the fact that they're already used interchangeably all over the place on this wiki. Even then, it's a valid question whether they're different enough that, if that really is the only distinction between the two tropes, they deserve to be two tropes.

How about just folding them into a new trope, Epigrammatic Entrepreneur?

"Entrepreneur"?

Madrugada: Unfortunetly, the trope Deadpan Snarker also includes "occasionally whimsical asides". That isn't snark (a sarcastic comment), although it does fit "funny lines" and "to deflate pomposity".

johnnye: Why is there a new trope name discussion? You don't even have a definition. Both terms are "established" by this wiki's standards.

edited 11th Dec '13 3:26:47 PM by crazysamaritan

I don't think we need to rename anything. I was just curious why 0dd1 was suggesting we call it that, of all things. Neither trope has anything to do with entrepreneurs.

Ah, sorry.

I'm just kinda stunned that's what you questioned and not the "Epigrammatic" part.