Misused: No Except Yes

[Tried to post this, but messed up the titling].

A lot of the examples listed are plainly not examples. The trope's meaning is very clear: "First you say what it isn't. Then you say what it is. Both of them effectively have the same meaning." An example of this is "We're not lost, we don't know where we are". Many of the examples are one of the following:

• Many examples are distinctions where there is a very clear difference, but the statement is Blatant Lies, such as a thief saying "I don't steal things, I borrow them".

• Some examples are distinctions between things that are used interchangeably in general, but are hugely important in the context, e. g., a man kills someone in self-defence, gets put on trial for murder, and denies having committed a murder while acknowledging that he killed someone

• Sometimes it's just used to mean "any time a character makes a distinction between two things", ex. "I don't have a brother, I have a sister".

• Sometimes it's just used to mean Double Standard (see the Finian's Rainbow example)

edited 5th Apr '16 6:52:46 PM by ading

Aside from the example not always working, there is no functional distinction between this trope and "By "No", I Mean "Yes".

I'll try to help going forward by adding commented guidelines in the main page advising against those things.

edited 12th Aug '16 8:08:40 AM by case

I would say the most easy solution would be to merge this page with By "No", I Mean "Yes".

Yeah, just merge it. This seems exceptionally cut and dry.

I find that No, Except Yes is when the character says something different that has the same functional meaning as what was first said, while By "No", I Mean "Yes" is when the character explicitly admits the first character is right. I'm not sure if that's a signficant difference, but it's a difference.

Either way, a lot of the misuse don't fit either trope.

So this one is when character claims he's doing what he denies doing just words it differently, while the other is when character claims he's not doing something and then claims he's doing it? Still seems Ridiculously Similar at best to me. I agree with merging.

No, Except Yes is a horribly misleading name that's pretty much the exact opposite of what the trope actually says.

This trope has a character use two terms that mean the same thing act as if they're different. Like, "It's not a box, it's a crate."

By "No", I Mean "Yes" is the opposite, the character uses two terms that mean different things and acts as if they're the same. "By box, I mean a barrel." (to this the no and yes in the name make sense)

Abuse Of Homonyms for a new name and kick misuse to By "No", I Mean "Yes"?

Right, sorry, I meant Abuse Of Synonyms.

edited 9th Nov '16 5:45:44 AM by StarSword

That's not what "homonyms" means. Two words are homonyms if they have the same pronunciation and/or spelling, but mean different things.

I agree with Diamond Weapon; we ought not merge two opposites - one trope is saying that two different things are the same thing, and the other says that two same things are actually different things. I think that a better, more accurate name for the trope in the OP would probably help clear up all the confused examples the best.

edited 18th Oct '16 1:22:50 PM by MayorP

We should rename it "Distinction without a difference", which is how it's formally known.

Good idea.That will probably clear up the misconception.Hopefully it will put this issue to rest.

So what's everybody else's verdict?

Distinction Without a Difference works for me.

That's a better name for the trope, yes.

Well, I would've liked Abuse Of Synonyms (that's what I meant to say up top of this page but I got the words mixed up), but I'll go with a technical name for the trope.

Whenever possible; use the pre-existing term.

Perhaps we can get Abuse Of Synonyms as a redirect? Yea/Nay?

I'd give a luke-warm "why not?" to that.

That works for me.

Page moved; wicks need fixing and FAQ thread needs updating.

... None of you thought of the much shorter Meaningless Distinction or Useless Distinction as an alternate name?

EDIT: Wait, "distinction without a difference" is the formal name for the concept IRL? Huh. Well, the above could serve as redirects, at least.

edited 10th Nov '16 11:24:46 AM by MarqFJA

Why aren't the redirects showing up correctly in the "Related To" page?

This Is Pest Control is a redirect that ought to be cut after dewicking, except that it has 39 inbounds.