All the Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
"A Ghost Head is a type of Cybernetic Allen Key which a Fake Thomas Jefferson uses to Impeach The Goddamn President. Used mostly when a writer is Combing His Hair or Speaking Fluent Cat, although if a character is Shirtless And Hungry it can be used to give them a Fire Island Swirlie. See also The Alien Is Not An Alien and Germany Fits In My Pocket."
—Something Awful forums, on The Other Tropes Wiki's effects on language[1][2]

Or enrich it, depending on your point of view.

It seems to be not at all unusual for a Troper to begin speaking tropinese in real-life situations that do not involve discussion of entertainment. This is apparently another way that Tropes Will Ruin Your Life.

The most evident symptom of this is the word "trope" itself, which is not commonly used outside of this site—it's only the 67,470th most frequent English word. That's behind "privies" but ahead of "milliners", just for reference.

At this rate we're going to end up fitting in on the Tamarian homeworld.[3]

You may even realize [4] that you have already started doing this without realizing.

This, when combined to a tendency to apply Square Peg, Round Trope is why some artists aware of troping aren't exactly fond of TV Tropes. (All The Tropes may still be under their radar for the moment.) On the other hand, many artists are Tropers themselves, so YMMV.

Compare Newspeak.

  1. ↑ Please note that none of these are actually tropes. Well, except for "The Alien Is Not An Alien".
  2. ↑ Maybe they're from an Alternate Universe version of All The Tropes?
  3. ↑ Darmok and Jalad, at Tanagra.
  4. ↑ on the way to the fridge
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