Needs Help: You Keep Using That Word

Examples on this page are sorted according to how "pedantic" the difference between word X and word Y is and what it supposedly means. This is a pretty subjective category and an example one considers perfectly fine can be seen as nitpicky by others. Not to mention, Examples Are Not Recent and as time goes on the pedantic-ness of words will change.

I suggest we just scrap the whole thing and sort everything alphabetically.

Opening and yes that distinction seems meaningless.

I've started re-sorting the examples, but there's also a lot of fixing needed with the huge amount of Repair Dont Respond s there are.

Are we sure we even know what the trope is?

The usage of a word changing is a different trope entirely. (Several tropes, actually.)

Not sure. Really, a lot of the examples have just turned into a forum discussion. But I'm doing the sorting before working on that problem.

The trope has always confused me because it's clearly named for the Princess Bride joke, which it even tries to explain, but it's not how I've understood it. From what I understood, the joke is not that Vizzini is actually using the wrong word. It's that Inigo commenting on his continual usage of it (considering its definition) lampshades the ludicrous situation that they're in. The ability of the man in black to continue following them despite their attempts to get rid of him really is absurd and anyone in real life would have a hard time believing that the man is managing to keep up.

And ultimately, that doesn't seem to have a lot to do with what the trope is about anyway, which only confuses things further.

edited 2nd Oct '17 12:00:57 PM by Jokubas

I wouldn't touch the examples until we get a definition down pat. I'm not sure if this is a trope as-is. It seems like it's trying to be a Useful Note. There's Malaproper and Delusions of Eloquence for characters saying things wrong, and I'm wondering if there's a trope for the overly pedantic character or if this could be converted into that (or otherwise replaced by that).

Bump, as action was prematurely taken some time earlier.

Do we have definite options for a possible crowner?

We haven't really talked about this one much, so I'm not sure what to suggest for a crowner. That said, a few people were more focused on reorganizing the examples whereas others were more focused on whether this was even a trope. I'm not convinced that just "Term Confusion" would be a trope that's different from, say, Malaproper. Moreover, the examples list consists wholly of definitions and explanations of words rather than instances of this concept in media, and that makes me think this just flat out isn't a trope to begin with.

This thing has 1,032 wicks and 11,388 inbounds, so I'm pretty sure outright cutting it is off the table...? What about merging it with something or making a replacement trope in TLP?

You Keep Using That Word should probably be "character is pedantic about word usage" which the name, Trope Namer, Laconic and image would fit; but as is, it's a Useful Note about words with commonly contested usages. The original TLP used this definition. Does anyone else have an opinion on what to do with the page?

^ I don't think this trope is meant for characters. It's when writers mistake words. Although the trope title makes it sound like characters call other characters out for using the wrong word.

Characters being pedantic about word usage is another trope, IMO. Like Grammar Nazi or Insistent Terminology.

Btw, is YouKeepUsingThatWord.Very Pedantic how we create subpages nowadays?

I think the trope should be "characters point out wrong uses of words"' while you think it should be "out-of-universe word errors". Those sound like separate tropes.

Also, the examples currently consist of words people often get wrong in general, rather than specific examples in media.

edited 10th Dec '17 8:04:15 PM by Lymantria

That page was made in 2011. IMO, these sub-pages should be cut because they don't list examples of tropes in media or works with a trope. It's a poor attempt at a dictionary with a nonsensical organizing principle.

I could support merging this with Insistent Terminology under the "make it a character-does-this-trope" and "being otherwise redundant with Insistent Terminology" ideas. And then move wicks to either Insistent Terminology, Malaproper, Grammar Nazi, or Delusions of Eloquence as is appropriate.

Observations:

1. The three subpages make for an interesting read but are not work-related and read more like useful notes. What exactly should we do with those?
2. We need clarification if this trope should apply to unintentional misuse of words by creators or if it's something that must be lampshaded as being wrong in-universe. Or both?
3. We need clarification if a once-off misuse already qualifies. "Keep using" implies continuous misuse.
4. I don't think this trope has sufficient overlap with another trope to justify a merge.
5. However, in order to make this a proper trope page, an example list should be compiled from existing wicks. Misuse on work pages can be fixed in the course of this.

edited 11th Dec '17 6:16:25 PM by eroock

Agreed.

Just noting that the entries on I Thought It Meant are pretty close what the subpages of You Keep Using That Word are getting at. So we could move the content there and focus the trope on actual examples in media.

That's an In-Universe example.

Correct. I am just teasing to get a discussion going whether this trope should be about in-universe use or not. What's your take?

It should be about in-universe (character points out a wrong word usage) or out-of-universe (the makers of a work get a word wrong) examples, but not both. Currently, the page lists neither. I'm not sure which one it should be, since we already have tropes that might cover both.

Also I Thought It Meant and the current definition of You Keep Using That Word are somewhat similar, but not identical: ITIM is about trope and work titles that sound like something else, YKUTW is about words that are often misused (possibly, but not necessarily, because they sound like something else).

edited 13th Dec '17 5:02:41 AM by Lymantria

Those two tropes are different, indeed. Just saying that the current examples from YKUTW subtropes are a better fit for ITIM than for their own page.

Should we have a crowner to decide on the definition of You Keep Using That Word?

I suppose so.

Crowner.

[wrong thread]

edited 14th Dec '17 4:21:18 PM by eroock

When did we discuss making this a useful note? We talked about how it reads like one but we didn't talk about that being a solution to the problem. What about the idea of merging this with something else?

edited 15th Dec '17 6:24:08 AM by WaterBlap