Needs Help: You Keep Using That Word

Which tropes could this be merged with?

I think making it a Useful Note is a possibility.

We have Malaproper, Delusions of Eloquence, Insistent Terminology, and Grammar Nazi.

In comment #13, I suggested merging this with Insistent Terminology. Nobody responded.

While I think it could be a Useful Note, I don't see what the point would be. We're not a dictionary and that's all a writer would need to better understand the meaning of these "pedantic" words.

It's hard without an actual example list to determine if this trope can be dissolved into related tropes. ^note We could try for the Trope Namer from The Princess Bride though: Inigo keeps saying "inconceivable" when he actually meant "impossible".

• Malaproper would assume he is doing this for all sort of words, but we only know of one word Inigo gets wrong. Could be listed as a downplayed example though.
• Delusions of Eloquence would assume he does it to sound more educated. Does "inconceivable" sound more educated than "impossible"? Hmm, questionable.
• Insistent Terminology and Grammar Nazi would assume somebody is overly pedantic about the word/grammar used: calling Inigo out for saying "inconceivable" instead of "impossible" doesn't seem overly pedantic.

Can the crowner be hooked?

If there are (in-universe) examples of You Keep Using That Word that don't fit any existing tropes, maybe a trope should be created for them, like I've suggested.

edited 17th Dec '17 5:01:34 PM by Lymantria

How do I get the text in the header to show up?

Also, if we decide to make this an actual trope, what will be done with the current examples?

edited 25th Dec '17 7:25:03 AM by Lymantria

Should the crowner be called? It's been a week and we have a clear winner.

I don't see why we need the huge list of commonly confused words if we're making this an in-universe trope, especially because they'd just end up being general examples. If people want to use a wiki to look up definitions, Wiktionary exists.

edited 27th Dec '17 8:02:13 AM by GastonRabbit

So we don't even need to move it to a Useful Notes page? As was said upthread, the pages are a very interesting read.

edited 27th Dec '17 9:17:52 AM by Lymantria

The information could be useful to someone but our Useful Notes pages are supposed to be useful to creators in the creation of media. Also, we are not a dictionary. That information should be left to professionals who know what they're talking about...

Is there a dictionary that's specifically about words with commonly contested usages, like our page is now? (A regular dictionary would also help, just not as much).

We have a Useful Notes page on, say, Dinosaurs and we're not palaeontologists; there are plenty of more reliable sources one could use if they wanted to learn about dinosaurs.

edited 27th Dec '17 10:18:27 AM by Lymantria

Dinosaurs appear in media. Creators wanting to portray dinosaurs realistically or accurately could use that page for help. Moreover, it has nothing to do with this particular issue.

Also, yes, you go to a dictionary and look up the word and it gives you the information you're looking for.

Take, for example from VeryPedantic.You Keep Using That Word, "Chauvinism." On the page, it says that it "originally meant extreme patriotism and nationalism, and the belief in one nation's superiority over others," but Merriam-Webster says it still means "excessive or blind patriotism" (along with its other meanings). Another example: "nimrod." Our page says "When people hear the word nimrod, they may think of a fool or lunkhead, but the word actually comes from a powerful figure in The Bible and Mesopotamian mythology," and the Merriam-Webster page explains that the capitalization differentiates between some of these meanings. Moreover, Merriam-Webster explains "Because the tower resulted in the wrath of the Lord and proved a disastrous idea, nimrod is sometimes used with yet another meaning: 'a stupid person.'" But our page downplays this information as an anecdote.

So you think they should just be deleted? I get it, but you haven't answerd my question in the first paragraph of my last post.

(If we deleted them, that would make the original issue in this thread moot - and moot happens to be a word listed on them).

I'd be fine with deleting them - I could just find another, similar source, like you said - but I'm just asking...

edited 28th Dec '17 6:10:57 AM by Lymantria

The second paragraph of my previous comment was meant to be the answer to your question, though looking back, I can see why it isn't so clear an answer.

The answer to your question is "every dictionary." They all list current and obsolete definitions, and if a definition isn't listed as obsolete ("obs.") then it's still in use. Some dictionaries explain nuances better than others, but still, those are the resources a writer should be using for word meaning and usage. There are other resources, too, but they're usually created by experts (e.g. linguists, grammarians, rhetoric professors, etc.) rather than any random person on the Internet.

I'm wholeheartedly in favor of just deleting the subpages. Or, in order to retain the inbounds, to convert them into redirects to the trope page.

edited 28th Dec '17 3:58:20 PM by WaterBlap

Fine, just delete them. But you didn't respond to my query in post 37 - all of our Useful Notes pages are written by non-experts.

If a writer wanted to learn about dinosaurs, they could easily find a better source.

edited 29th Dec '17 8:11:00 AM by Lymantria

I literally answered your question twice. You asked "Is there a dictionary that's specifically about words with commonly contested usages, like our page is now?" The answer is and has been "Yes, every dictionary."

If your dinosaurs comment was meant to be a query then please write it as a question. How is anyone supposed to know you mean a question when you phrase it like a statement? Moreover, I already responded to that "question" in the first paragraph of 38.

If a creator wanted to use dinosaurs in a work, there are better sources they could use than something unsourced and written by random people on the Internet.

@Lymantria I'll agree with your stance on Useful Notes in general.

edited 31st Dec '17 1:08:44 AM by Albert3105

Based on your post and the crowner decision, how do you think the page should be fixed? You're right, maybe the examples on the subpages could be moved to other tropes. But we already decided on the definition of the main trope.

edited 31st Dec '17 10:02:48 AM by Lymantria

How can we make sure that this trope is not used for out-of-universe examples on work pages? Look at this request on Trope Finder.

edited 31st Dec '17 10:26:50 AM by eroock

I think removal would be enough unless misuse persists. Using it for out-of-universe word misuse would pretty much mean using it as an Audience Reaction, which is already misuse for objective tropes.

Edit: I mentioned this thread in that TF query. What's being mentioned there sounds like Gratuitous English because it's about an English word being misused in Japanese works.

edited 31st Dec '17 1:08:58 PM by GastonRabbit

So any thoughts on what we're redefining the trope as? I upvoted all of the options (redefine as In-Universe word confusion, redefine as out-of universe word confusion, make into a Useful Note) except for cutting it (which, if we had done it, we could have moved some of the wicks to other tropes). I'm not sure why, but "redefine as In-Universe word confusion" overwhelmingly won.

The consensus is to define it as "in-universe word confusion." That's what we're redefining it as. Why are you asking what we're going to redefine it as?

Also, the "argument" about our Dinosaurs page is just going in circles.

If you want to equate words with dinosaurs, fine. I don't equate them because they aren't the same kind of things and that's ridiculous to do. To your point that all of our Useful Notes pages are written by non-experts, cool. I never said they were written by experts. My point was not about the expertise of the writers of sources. My point is that these pages are supposed to be useful to creators. A dictionary-equivalent is in no way more useful than just a regular dicitonary. Ergo, the page would be totally useless to creators trying to look up word definitions.