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there's 1500 wicks, just for the record.
Migrated to Chloe Jessica!
I always assumed the play on words was intentional.
The description of the trope needs to be worked on, since it doesn't outright state what the trope is until the next-to-last paragraph.
We probably should swap the trope to the correct term, and leave the old one as a redirect to avoid confusion. My main question is: is the word confusion echoed in the use of the terms in the wider world? Are we documenting existing language use or inventing a new, incorrect use?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
We're not inventing a new use for "reprisal". I've heard that meaning outside the wiki on occasion.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
As have I, and I presume that's why the Free Dictionary's pages on "reprise" and "reprisal" say the words are not to be confused with each other. But a mistake used beyond the wiki is still a mistake. It's like "affect" and "effect"; just because those words are frequently confused for each other doesn't mean dictionaries are going to start saying they can be used interchangeably. We wouldn't have a page on the Chris Carter Affect or the Weird Al Affect, for example (unless we were using the word "affect" to mean "emotion" - the Chris Carter Affect would be frustration and the Weird Al Affect would be mirth, I suppose).
That said, I agree a redirect to the old term would be necessary if the name were changed. (Besides, I'm guessing there are too many inbounds to make a cut practical.)
Edited by mlsmithca
Yep, it's at a point where it would be a redirect if such a change were made.
We didn't invent the incorrect use, but we shouldn't promote it, either.
Isn't this a textbook case of You Keep Using That Word?
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
I'd say so, and as the two words mean completely different things, I'd suggest it should go under "less pedantic". How does this look for an entry?
- A reprisal is an attack, particularly in warfare, carried out in retaliation for a previous attack. It is not the repetition of a musical number or a performance; that would be a reprise.
Would a prospective rename need to be cleared by TRS first? If not, would it make sense to start a thread in Short-Term Projects to move the wicks?
We would absolutely have to go through TRS here.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
Take it to TRS. Mods are trending towards being fine with a rename + redirect, but let's make it official.
Role Reprisal is an established page on the wiki, going back to at least 2011 and with over 1400 wicks, and a brief definition is "when a performer who has turned their back on a role for one reason or another returns to it for a later work."
Here's the problem: that's not what a reprisal is.
According to Merriam-Webster,
Dictionary.com,
the Cambridge English Dictionary,
Collins,
Macmillan,
Vocabulary.com,
the Free Dictionary,
Longman,
Princeton, Chambers,
and every other dictionary on or offline in both American and Commonwealth English that I can find, a reprisal is a retaliatory attack, particularly in wartime.
Rather, any form of returning to previous material is a reprise - a performer reprises the role, and the act of doing so is called a reprise. Again, Merriam-Webster,
Dictionary.com,
the Cambridge English Dictionary,
Collins,
Macmillan,
Vocabulary.com,
the Free Dictionary,
Longman,
Princeton, Chambers,
and every other dictionary on or offline in both American and Commonwealth English that I can find agrees on this point. "Reprisal" is not a fancy version or the noun version of "reprise"; the Free Dictionary even includes notes on the pages for both "reprise" and "reprisal" that the two words are not to be confused with each other.
In other words, it should really be called Role Reprise, not Role Reprisal. Is it worth renaming it and changing the wicks?