We Will Use Wiki Words in the Future: Difference between revisions

Admittedly, this is how a lot of real words get formed, but for full [[Sci Fi]] (see what we did there!) credit, the combination should sound grating, unnatural, and futuristic. Also, when you create real words this way, you usually do it by combining roots which aren't complete words (at least in English) to begin with. Typically a noun and an adjective. (See [[Wikipedia:Portmanteau]].)

 

 

This convention is, of course, perfectly natural in languages where you make new words that way as a matter of course, such as German (but note that German doesn't use CamelCase) or Japanese (see [[Portmanteau Series Nickname]]). As evidenced by the popularity of terms like [[Blogosphere]] (or arguably [[Blog]], for that matter) and [[Podcast]], as well as the long list of [[Real Life]] examples below, this trope is definitely [[Truth in Television]] in English as well, though not to the point where the entire language is replaced by such words (yet).

* The British power metal band DragonForce spells their name this way. Their original name was DragonHeart. Especially frustrating on this site as ''Dragon Force'' (which is how the band name shows up without the NotAWikiWord markup) is a Sega Saturn game.

* [[Brave Saint Saturn]].

* [[Soundgarden]], itself a portmanteau name, has the albums ''Badmotorfinger'' and ''Superunknown'' (the latter originated from Chris Cornell reading "Superclown" wrong, the former's a joke/reference to "Bad Motor Scooter" by Montrose).

* [[Liz Phair]], with albums ''whitechocolatespaceegg'' and ''Comeandgetit''.

 

* ''ComStar''. ''MechWarrior''. ''[[Drop Ship]]''. ''BattleMech''. ''[[BattleTech]]''.

** The runepriest existed in prior editions, and numerous other games such as Warhammer.

* ''[[Paranoia]]'' has a number of these, such as IntSec ([[Secret Police|Internal Security]]) and MemoMax (the process that transfers a dead citizen's memories to his next-of-clone). ''Paranoia'' has to have these—it draws on ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' among other works.

== Toys ==

 

 

== Video Games ==

 

* ''[[Mega Man Legends]]'' and ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' have been using the spelling "MegaMan" instead. This is an interesting compromise with the eternal misspelling "Mega Man". More to the point, the BattleChips of the latter had [[Wiki Word]] names, too: HiCannon, AirShot, NoBeam and PoisFace, for example. That last one is an abbreviation for Poison Face, by the way. Apparently we will still have filename length limits in the future also.

{{quote|'''King Fan Club #5 "G"''': Man, you always worhar! "Worhar" is short for "work hard." And since you're a worhar king, you need to chill! I'm rootin' for ya! [[World of Warcraft|Loktar!]] [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|Bewbies!]] Lates!}}

* Earlier games in general usually had engines that limited the number of text within certain spaces. For example in an early SNES RPG would have something like 'Fire Sword' would have it spelled as 'FireSwrd' or 'F.Swrd'. Although this is something of an inverse since this is now pretty much obsolete in games (as memory and text size increased) except maybe a retro-styled or homebrew game.

== Other ==

 

* A skit by the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy group mocked ''[[Battlefield Earth]]'''s use of compound words. They presented ''Battlezone Planet''.

{{quote|"Jonnie opened his space-backpack to do an inventory: one sleep-blanket, two flask-holders of liquid drink-water, four holder-containers of nutrition-food..."}}

* This is also fairly common among Swedish computer geeks, as a lot of computer terms don't have an official translation and those that do end up sounding really, really silly. These terms are sometimes combined with Swedish words to form new words, that also end up sounding fairly silly, though less so than actual translations. Usually.

* Can also happen in German - German grammar allows one to stick any two nouns together to form a new word, and there are quite a few words that have been "imported" from other languages. The result: stuff like "Computerfabrik", "Spitzenperformance" or "Worst-Case-Analyse".

** This is a rather popular child's game in Germany. You start with a [[Wiki Word]] ,say ''[[Wiki Word]]''. The next player has to find (or make up a plausible) Wikiword that begins with the last part of the first,in this case ''word-counter''. If you have good or very creative players it can go on for hours.

* French gamers tend to concentrate the words "Jeux vidéos" into "Jivés" (From JV), also, Dessins Animés ("Cartoons") have usually called "Déhas" (DA) and Bandes Dessinées have been called "Bédés" since this tropper's father childhood. Unless BD/Bédés most words are used only in oral and never in any written forms outside message boards.

** That one almost makes sense: it was founded by the merger of apparently important company Price Waterhouse with apparently important company Coopers & Lybrand, and the "waterhouse" is in lowercase presumably to indicate that it wasn't a separate firm at the time of the merger.

** PwC is the world's largest professional services firm; their main businesses are financial statement auditing, tax, and consulting. They're best know to the public as the people who ensure that Academy Award votes are counted accurately. The accounting industry is packed with examples of WikiWords or [[Long List]] titles, as accounting firms often grow more through acquisition than by simply picking up customers. Consider the naming history of a slightly smaller audit/tax/advisory firm, [[wikipedia:KMG Group#Early years and mergers|KPMG]]. KPMG spun off its consulting business in the wake of Enron's collapse, and the new firm chose the name [[wikipedia:BearingPoint|BearingPoint]]. Unlike many examples shown here, this was not a branding decision done to appease the owners of an assimilated company; this was a conscious decision.

* This very page has attracted ads for [http://www.visualthesaurus.com/?ad=google.vocabulary&gclid=CMquztSnjJICFQ8YQgod4CvmEA Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus], BookSurge, and BabelGum

* Indeed, many companies formed by mergers now have names that look like multiple rear-end pileups of words. ExxonMobil and GlaxoSmithKline<ref>Glaxo Wellcome + SmithKline Beecham</ref> to name but two. To the extent that people have now started doing it with names that ''aren't'' in CamelCase, just because they expect it. Eurostar being written as EuroStar is one that is used in everyday life a lot.

* At some point the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team officially took on "D-Backs" as a alternative naming. The gothic font they used on their uniforms further renamed them the ''O-Backs''.

[[Category:Newspeak]]

[[Category:We Will Use An Index In The Future]]