Language Tropes

Tropes specifically having to do with use of language, including translations.

See also: Dialogue, Innuendo Tropes, Oral Tradition, Incoherence Index, the Language Useful Notes, and Home Pages By Language (for this site in other languages).

Tropes:

• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: A character emphasizes the wrong parts of a word when pronouncing it.
• Acquired Error at the Printer
• Acronym Confusion: One abbreviation is mistaken for another.
• Acronym and Abbreviation Overload: A character has a tendency to use acronyms and abbreviations constantly.
• A.I.-cronym: AI/Robots/machines are often given names. These names are typically an acronym for a phrase at least tangentially related to their purpose.
• Aliens Speaking English: Aliens are already able to speak English in spite of never visiting Earth before.
• The All-Concealing "I": A story is in a first-person narrative so that the protagonist's true nature can be revealed in a twist ending.
• all lowercase letters
• Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: When a character says their catchphrase in a different tone of voice than normal.
• Alternate Character Reading
• Ambiguous Syntax: The phrasing of a sentence allows for more than one interpretation of what the sentence means.
• Animal Talk: All animal species can communicate with each other, except for humans.
• Antiquated Linguistics
• Arab Beoble Talk
• Artificial Script
• Asian Speekee Engrish: East Asian people speaking in broken English.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign
• Atomic F-Bomb: Someone hollers the word "fuck" or another swear word as loud as they can.
• Author Vocabulary Calendar
• Auto-Incorrect: Autocorrect or speech-to-text software screws up a statement.
• Baby Language: Babies have their own language.
• Baby's First Words: A baby's first words, which are often heartwarming or funny.
• Baby Talk: Babies and toddlers speak, but have speech impediments because of their age.
• Bilingual Animal: An animal that speaks both a human language and its animal language.
• Bilingual Backfire
• Bilingual Bonus: A work has some untranslated words in a different language.
• Bilingual Dialogue
• Bite the Wax Tadpole
• Black Speech: An evil language that hurts non-evil listeners.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Something ends up translated too literally.
• The Body Parts That Must Not Be Named: People avoid directly naming the genitalia.
• Brand Name Takeover: A brand becomes the generic word for something.
• Buffy Speak: Someone doesn't know the word for something and does things like add "Y"s on the end, call it a "thingy", etc.
• Busman's Vocabulary: Someone's vocabulary coincides with their job.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes"
• Calculator Spelling: Using the seven-segment display on a calculator (usually turned upside-down) to spell out something.
• Call a Human a "Meatbag": A slur that means "human".
• Call a Pegasus a "Hippogriff"
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": A mundane animal is given an unusual name.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": A bizarre creature is given the name of a mundane animal.
• Canis Latinicus: Butchered Latin.
  • Binomium ridiculus
• Classical Tongue
• Cloudcuckoolanguage: A goofy character has their own language.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Someone repeatedly uses cuss words (commonly the F-word, hence the name) in a single sentence.
• Common Tongue: Disparate groups, which might have their own cultural languages, nevertheless use a shared language to communicate.
• Congestion Speak: A character's written dialogue is misspelled (for instance, replacing "N"s with "D"s) to indicate they have a stuffy nose.
• Conlang: A language that has been intentionally designed instead of developing organically.
• Conveniently Precise Translation
• Conversation Hog: When a character keeps another from getting a word or a defense in-edgewise.
• Country Matters: The infamous "C word" (cunt) and its effects in different cultures.
• Crunchtastic: An ad uses nonsense adjectives that sound positive, either as Weasel Words or for comedy.
• Cunning Linguist: A linguist who's strategic (not related to the dirty joke).
• Curse of Babel: A character loses the ability to speak intelligibly.
• Curse of The Ancients: Elderly people shout old-timey exclamations.
• Cypher Language
• Deadly Euphemism: Killing is referred to using other words, so as to sound less brutal or conceal the intent from those not in the know.
• Delusions of Eloquence
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research: A work imported to the United Kingdom causes controversy over using words that are unintentionally offensive towards Britons.
• Dinner Order Flub: A waiter gets an order wrong.
• Dissimile
• Does Not Speak Common: A character mostly speaks in a different language from the rest of the cast.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": A person doesn't like formal titles.
• Either "World Domination", or Something About Bananas: A character translates another character as having said either a logical phrase or a silly one.
• Elective Broken Language
• Elective Unintelligible
• "El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Niño"
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: A speech impediment where Ls and Rs are pronounced as if they were Ws.
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue
• El Spanish "-o": Butchered Spanish.
• Enslaved Tongue
• Entendre Failure: The more risque meaning of a Double Entendre is lost on someone.
• Eternal English
• Even the Subtitler Is Stumped: When subtitles show up to translate the dialogue of someone speaking a foreign language, there will eventually be subtitles left blank because it's become impossible to translate the current saying.
• Everyone Knows Morse: All the characters know Morse Code.
• Everything Sounds Sexier in French: The French language is sexualised.
• Expository Pronoun
• Familiar Soundtrack, Foreign Lyrics
• Fan Sub: A foreign work is unofficially given translating subtitles by fans.
• Fang Thpeak
• Fan Translation
• Fantastic Measurement System
• Fantastic Slurs: Slurs aimed at people who are discriminated for their species rather than their ethnicity.
• Faux Fluency
• Fictionary
• Flowery Elizabethan English
• Flowery Insults: Someone uses a well-developed and highly detailed insult.
• Font Anachronism
• Foreign Cuss Word
• Foreigners Write Backwards
• Foreign-Language Tirade: When the Bilingual Bonus is an angry rant.
• Foreign-Looking Font
• Formal Characters Use Keigo: The association with formal Japanese speech with people who are polite, old-fashioned, mild-mannered, refined, or a combination thereof.
• From the Latin "Intro Ducere"
• Fun with Acronyms: Acronyms that stand for or spell out something funny.
• Fun with Foreign Languages
• Fun with Homophones: Confusion between two different words that sound the same.
• Fun with Palindromes
• Fun with Subtitles: The subtitles are used in humorous ways.
• Future Slang: The future has new slang words.
• Gay Euphemism: Avoiding directly using homosexuality-related terms.
• Gender Vocabulary Slip
• Gesundheit: Mistaking a word for a sneeze.
• Get Thee to a Nunnery: Things that were meant to sound dirty in the past, but sound clean now.
• Good Bad Translation
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Non-profane exclamations stand in for profanity.
• Got Me Doing It: A character complains about slipping into the vocabulary habits they just berated another person for using.
• Go to the Euphemism: A character uses a euphemism for "bathroom" or what you do there.
• Gratuitous Iambic Pentameter
• Hash House Lingo: Restaurants have their own slang for menu items.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Phrases that sound dirty now because of the evolution of language.
• Hiding Behind the Language Barrier
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: A work of fiction has the characters use different versions of familiar phrases and figures of speech due to the setting preventing the normal versions of the statements from making any sense.
• Hollywood Spelling
• How Do I Used Tense?
• How Do You Say
• Hulk Speak: A character speaks in third person and uses incomplete sentences.
• Hurricane of Puns
• I Do Not Speak Nonverbal
• I Just Like Saying the Word
• Incidental Multilingual Wordplay
• Inexplicable Language Fluency: A character understands a language they've never seen/heard before.
• Inexplicably Speaks Fluent Alien
• In My Language, That Sounds Like...
• Indo-European Alien Language
• Informed Obscenity: A nonsensical or innocuous word is treated as if it were a profanity.
• Inherently Funny Words
• Intentional Engrish for Funny: Bad English is put in for comedy.
• Intentionally Awkward Title
• International Pop Song English
• In the Local Tongue
• Invented Linguistic Distinction
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Calling a person "it" to show that you do not consider them human.
• Japanese Ranguage: The stereotype that Asians can't distinguish between "L" and "R" sounds.
• Jive Turkey: A character speaks in jive.
• Language Barrier: Trouble arises because people don't speak the same language.
• Language Drift
• Language Equals Thought
• Language Fluency Denial
• Language of Magic
• Language of Truth
• Last-Second Word Swap: Replacing the last word you intended to say at the last minute.
• Learnt English from Watching Television: Non-humans learn to speak English from watching television broadcasts.
• Least Rhymable Word: Someone tries to find a rhyming word to a word that has little or no known rhymes.
• Leet Lingo
• Left Field Description: Describing important bits in unconventional ways that don't necessarily jump out to the reader.
• Letters 2 Numbers
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: A character says, "like" in between every other word.
• Lost Language
• Lucky Charms Title
• Lyrical Tic
• Magical Foreign Words
• Magical Profanity Filter: A magic spell or other in-universe effect that prevents characters from swearing.
• Magick
• Mamet Speak
• Medieval Universal Literacy: Most people in a Medieval European Fantasy setting seem to know how to read and write (in contrast to the real-life medieval era where the opposite was true).
• Metaphorgotten: A character starts off with a metaphor or analogy, but then gets sidetracked by what the metaphor or analogy implies.
• Microts
• Misspelling Out Loud: A character tries to spell a word out loud, but either gets it wrong or unintentionally spells a completely different word.
• Mixed Metaphor
• Mondegreen Gag: A statement is misheard.
• Mouthing the Profanity
• Multilingual Song
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: The different dubs of a work have one actor reprising their role for the translations.
• Multiple Reference Pun
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: A character attempts to speak a foreign language, but ends up getting someone mad by unintentionally saying an insulting phrase or embarrassing themselves because their statement translates as meaningless nonsense or a humiliating phrase.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: The narrator implies or outright confirms that a character swore when the audience doesn't hear the character use profanity.
• Neologism: A made-up word.
• Neologizer
• Nerds Speak Klingon
• Never Learned to Read: A character is illiterate.
• Noble Tongue
• No Longer with Us: A common euphemism for death turns out to be meant literally or is mistaken for being literal by a naive listener.
• Non-Indicative Name: A character's name does not match who they are.
• no punctuation is funnier
• No Punctuation Period
• Nu Speling: In the future, words are spelled as if they were written or typed by barely-literate children.
• Obligatory Corporate Initialism
• Obligatory Swearing: A work features profanity just because it's an adult story.
• Oh, My Gods!: Parodies of religion-related expressions like "Oh my God!" or "Saints alive!".
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe
• Omniglot: A character who can speak many languages.
• Once for Yes, Twice for No
• One, Two, Three, Four, Go!
• Orphaned Etymology
• Otherworldly Communication Failure: Speaking a language not known to humans may be the cause of this trope.
• Overly Literal Transcription
• Pardon My Klingon: Alien swear words.
• Perfectly Cromulent Word: People using made-up words.
• Period Piece, Modern Language: The production is a posh historical one, the language is not.
• Person as Verb: A person's name is used as a verb pertaining to an action appropriate to the person's behavior and reputation.
• Phantasy Spelling
• Pig Latin: A language where you move the first consonant or consonants at the beginning of every word to the end followed by "ay", or just "ay" if the first letter is a vowel. (example: "I-ay ould-way ike-lay o-tay ing-say.")
• Pluralses
• Point of View
• Poirot Speak: A character has difficulty properly speaking the English language.
• Pokémon Speak: A character never says anything other than their own name.
• [Popular Saying], But...
• Portmanteau: A word that is a combination of two or more individual words.
• The Power of Language
• Precision F-Strike: A character who doesn't usually swear ends up saying a curse word out of the blue, or a work that usually doesn't feature profanity features some at one point (or alternatively, a work that usually features mild profanity features a case of strong profanity).
• Prepositions Are Not to End Sentences With: The misconception that ending a sentence with a preposition (a direction-related word like "to" or "through") is grammatically incorrect.
• Pretentious Latin Motto
• Pretentious Pronunciation: A word gets pronounced in a pseudo-foreign manner in an attempt to sound fancy.
• The Problem with Pen Island: Because website URLs do not have spaces between words, certain website names can be misread as something else.
• Pronoun Trouble
• Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Prophecies are in rhyme.
• Psmith Psyndrome
• Primordial Tongue: One language spoken by the first humans that is the ancestor of all existing languages.
• Pun: A play on words.
• Punctuation Changes the Meaning
• Punctuation Shaker: Names with punctuation marks in them.
• The Queen's Latin
• Rapid-Fire Descriptors
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Fictional characters speak without using filler words, tripping over words, awkward pauses or interrupting each other mid-sentence.
• Recursive Acronym
• Recursive Translation
• Repeated Rehearsal Failure
• Rich Language, Poor Language: Rich and poor characters are distinguished by their accents and/or dialects.
• Riddle: Word puzzles with nonintuitive answers.
• Robo Speak
• Romantic Hyperbole
• Rouge Angles of Satin: A spelling mistake results in a whole different word.
• Royal "We": Using "we" instead of "I", famous for being how the Queen talks.
• Sacred Language
• Scanlation
• Scare Quotes
• Scary Science Words: A character is intimidated by technical-sounding words.
• Sdrawkcab Speech
• Separated by a Common Language: American English and British English have certain differences in the terms used.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: A character tends to use big words.
• Sexual Euphemism
• Shoehorned Acronym: A poorly-constructed acronym.
• Shoehorned First Letter
• Single Language Planet
• Smart People Know Latin
• Sommelier Speak
• Son of an Ape
• Sophisticated as Hell: A character who usually speaks sophisticated and politely suddenly resorts to using slang and profanity.
• Space "X"
• Speech-Impeded Love Interest
• Spell My Name with an S: A character's name doesn't have a consistent spelling.
• Spell My Name with a "The": A character is frequently addressed with "The" in front of their name.
• Speaking Like Totally Teen
• Speaking Simlish
• Speaks in Binary
• Speaks in Shout-Outs
• Speech-Centric Work
• Spelling for Emphasis: Spelling out a word to emphasise it.
• Spock Speak
• Spoonerism: Switching the first letters of two words (e.g. saying "whack and blight" instead of "black and white")
• Sssssnaketalk: Snakes and snake-like characters emphasize their Ss by hissing.
• Starfish Language
• Stealth Pun: A play on words that is subtle.
• Strange-Syntax Speaker
• Stupidly Long Filler Sound: A ditzy character exaggerates their speech disfluency when ask even in the simplest of questions.
• Stutter Stop: A character who usually stutters doesn't when things are serious.
• Suddenly Bilingual
• Suddenly Fluent in Gibberish: It's suddenly revealed that a character Speaks Fluent Animal or can speak a made-up language.
• Suddenly Speaking: A silent character finally talks.
• Surprisingly Good Foreign Language
• Switch to English
• T-Word Euphemism: Referring to a word as "the [letter] word".
• Tactful Translation
• Talking Is a Free Action
• Talk Like a Pirate: Pirates use expressions like "Arrr!", "Shiver me timbers", "ye", "me hearties", and "be" in the place of "is".
• Teasing from Behind the Language Barrier
• Technical Euphemism: Speaking euphemistically using technical language.
• Terse Talker
• That Sounds Familiar
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: A character insists on being addressed formally.
• Thieves' Cant
• Tongue Twister
• Totally Radical: Cheesy slang.
• Translated Cover Version
• Translate the Loanwords, Too
• Translation by Volume
• Translation Convention
• Translation Correction
• Translation Matchmaking
• Translation Punctuation
• Translation Style Choices
• Translation Train Wreck: A translation that fails miserably.
• Translation with an Agenda
• Translation: "Yes": A long statement made in a foreign language becomes ludicrously brief when translated.
• Translator Microbes
• Trolling Translator: The translator intentionally mistranslates what the foreign language speaker is saying.
• Trope Names from Other Languages
• Trope Names from the French
• Trrrilling Rrrs: A character tends to emphasize their Rs.
• Two of Your Earth Minutes
• Two Words: Added Emphasis: A character says "Two words" or any other number of words and immediately follows it with the two words they intend to use to make their point clear.
• Two Words: I Can't Count: An attempt at Two Words: Added Emphasis is flubbed when the person gets the number of words wrong.
• Tyop on the Cover
• Uncoffee: A fictional drink that acts like coffee.
• Untranslated Catchphrase
• Unusual Dysphemism: Foul language is used to refer to innocuous things.
• Unusual Euphemism: Bizarre words or phrases are used in place of profanity.
• Verbal Tic: A character has a specific way they talk, such as adding a specific word at the end of all their sentences.
• Verbal Ticked: A character with a verbal tic suddenly talks normally.
• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: People have trouble pronouncing something even when the official pronunciation is available.
• Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma
• Weapons-Grade Vocabulary
• What Song Was This Again?
• When Is Purple
• Wingdinglish
• Woolseyism: A translation alters the work's dialogue so it works better in the new language.
• Word Salad Philosophy
• Writing Lines: A character is punished by being forced to repeatedly write a sentence promising they'll never do what they did wrong again.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Misspelling words to be cool.
• Yiddish as a Second Language
• You Are the Translated Foreign Word
• You Keep Using That Word: A character uses a word constantly, but it is apparent that they don't know what the word actually means.
• You Know the One
• You No Take Candle: Bad grammar.
• You Say Tomato: More than one accepted way to pronounce a term.