Language Tropes

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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: A minor mistake in a printed sign renders the meaning completely different, usually something inappropriate.
• Acronym and Abbreviation Overload: A character has a tendency to use acronyms and abbreviations constantly.
• Acronym Confusion: One abbreviation is mistaken for another.
• Acronyms Are Easy as Aybeecee: A character mishears or miswrites an acronym as if it's a normal word.
• 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: not using capital letters
• Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: When a character says their catchphrase in a different tone of voice than normal.
• Alternate Character Reading: When Japanese words have different pronunciations and thus meanings.
• 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: The antiquated speech patterns of 18th-19th century English are used in a modern-day setting
• Ape Sign Language: Apes can use American Sign Language to communicate with humans.
• Arab Beoble Talk: Stereotypical depictions of Middle Eastern accents.
• Artificial Script: When a work uses an original alphabet or writing system.
• Asian Speekee Engrish: East Asian people speaking in stereotypical broken English.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: A foreign language is depicted with not a single ounce of accuracy.
• Atomic F-Bomb: Someone hollers the word "fuck" or another swear word as loud as they can.
• Author Vocabulary Calendar: A work gratuitously uses a rarely-used word several times.
• 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: Trash-talking someone in another language is not the stealth move you think it is when the subject knows that language.
• Bilingual Bonus: A work has some untranslated words in a different language.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Two characters understand each other perfectly despite each talking in a different language.
• Bilingual Rhyme: Rhyming words of one language with another.
• Binomium ridiculus: A creature is given a fictitious, silly-sounding Latin name.
• Bite the Wax Tadpole: Names and slogans sound ridiculous or inappropriate when imported into another language.
• 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.
• Broken Dialect, Impactful Speech: A character's lack of fluency doesn't stop their words from holding weight.
• 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": A character says one thing and then follows up that they meant to say the opposite.
• 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 an Ape a "Monkey": Incorrectly referring to apes as "monkeys" or vice versa.
• 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.
• Classical Tongue: A language that isn't extinct, but is so rare that it's only used by educated elites.
• 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: Nothing ever gets Lost in Translation in fiction, unless it's relevant to the plot.
• Conversation Hog: When a character keeps another from getting a word or a defense in-edgewise.
• 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: Writing dialogue in your own language, then doing a simple cypher that replaces one letter with another and having characters speak in the cypher. Ov xuslt qsivva ximm og auy hu wuxim vu wuxim epf duptupepv vu duptupepv. ^note But not great. Some consonants are always going to cause problems. The vowels are pretty interchangeable.
• 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: A character tries to use big words to look smart, and fails.
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research: A work imported to another country causes controversy over the use of words that are more offensive there than in the country of origin.
• Dinner Order Flub: A waiter gets an order wrong.
• Dissimile: Comparing two things that are nothing alike.
• 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: A character deliberately speaks imperfectly.
• Elective Unintelligible: A character deliberately speaks unintelligibly.
• "El Niño" Is Spanish for "The Niño": Words are translated identically between languages.
• Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: A speech impediment where Ls and Rs are pronounced as if they were Ws.
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue: A character is highly articulate in their native language.
• El Spanish "-o": Butchered Spanish
• Emotional Language Shift: A character reverts to their native language when angry, scared or excited.
• Enslaved Tongue: A character's voice is possessed.
• Entendre Failure: The more risque meaning of a Double Entendre is lost on someone.
• Eternal English: Everything else may change in time travel, but the language doesn't.
• 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 sexualized.
• Eye Chart Gag: A humorous gag involving the alphabetical letters written on an eye chart.
• Expository Pronoun: The specific pronouns that characters use say a lot about their character.
• Familiar Soundtrack, Foreign Lyrics: A well-known song is covered in another language in-universe.
• Fang Thpeak: Fangs give people a lisp.
• Fan Sub: A foreign work is unofficially given translating subtitles by fans.
• Fantastic Measurement System: A fictional unit of measurement.
• Fantastic Slurs: Slurs aimed at people who are discriminated for their species rather than their ethnicity.
• Fan Translation: An unofficial translation of a work created by amateurs.
• Faux Fluency: A character fluent in a particular language is portrayed by an actor who isn't.
• Fictional Slang: Fictional vernacular, insults, and cuss words unique to a fictional setting.
• Fictionary: A made-up language based heavily on a real language.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: A character talks like they're from the time of Shakespeare even when they're not.
• Flowery Insults: Someone uses a well-developed and highly detailed insult.
• Font Anachronism: Use of a typeface in a work where it didn't exist yet.
• Foreign Cuss Word: Swearing in another language.
• Foreigners Write Backwards: Fictional foreign languages are written in a different direction.
• Foreign-Language Tirade: When the Bilingual Bonus is an angry rant.
• Foreign-Looking Font: Depicting a foreign language by writing English in a different typeface.
• Formal Characters Use Keigo: The association with formal Japanese speech with people who are polite, old-fashioned, mild-mannered, refined, or a combination thereof.
• Frightening Foreign Language: A foreign language is used in order to unnerve or scare people, both In-Universe and/or the viewers.
• From the Latin "Intro Ducere": Introducing a concept with the word's etymology.
• Fun with Acronyms: Acronyms that stand for or spell out something funny.
• Fun with Foreign Languages: Comedic situations born from the use of multiple languages.
• Fun with Homophones: Confusion between two different words that sound the same.
• Fun with Palindromes: Words or sentences that are spelt the same backwards.
• 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: A character pretending to be the opposite gender blows their cover by using language associated with their own gender.
• 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: A translation that is so terrible, it's humorous.
• 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: Tis hard by far to emphasize how stilted can a person's language be. Iamb. In print it can be hard to spy, but spoken loud the mind it does espy. Iamb. In Shakespeare's day this was theatre's tongue, today; howe'er, a scene it can make clunk. Or not. Iamb.^note Iamb iamb iamb. The phrase must a quintet of iambs make.
• 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: Two people have a private conversation by speaking to each other in a language they know a third party won't understand.
• 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: Nobody asks how a word is spelled unless it's relevant to the plot.
• How Do You Say: A Stock Phrase for a Funny Foreigner.
• Hulk Speak: A character speaks in third person and uses incomplete sentences.
• Hurricane of Puns: Cracking puns one after another.
• Ice-Cream Koan: It sounds deep, but it's completely meaningless.
• I Do Not Speak Nonverbal: When attempts to communicate without speech fail.
• I Just Like Saying the Word: A character repeats a phrase simply because they like the sound of it.
• Incidental Multilingual Wordplay: When wordplay coincidentally works just as well in one language as another.
• Inconsistent Spelling: A name or term from a work doesn't have a consistent official spelling.
• Indo-European Alien Language: Alien languages follow the English grammar system.
• Informed Obscenity: A nonsensical or innocuous word is treated as if it were a profanity.
• Inexplicable Language Fluency: A character understands a language they've never seen/heard before.
• Inexplicably Speaks Fluent Alien: A character somehow understands a language from another planet.
• Inherently Funny Words: Words that are intrinsically amusing to say.
• In My Language, That Sounds Like...: The pronunciation of one thing sounds like something else in another language.
• Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier: A character insults another in a language they don't understand.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: One character speaks in a way unintelligible to the audience (beeps, grunts, One-Word Vocabulary), and another character understands them fine and carries on a dialogue as if they were speaking normally.
• Intentional Engrish for Funny: Bad English is put in for comedy.
• Intentionally Awkward Title: When a title is deliberately awkward to say out loud.
• International Pop Song English: The standard, non-regional English accent used by singers regardless of nationality
• In the Local Tongue: It sounds cool in its own language, but stupid or boring when translated back into English.
• Invented Linguistic Distinction: Even a fictional setting has regional dialects
• "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 evolves over time.
• Language Equals Thought: If the word for something doesn't exist in a language, the concept of it doesn't exist in the language's culture either.
• Language Fluency Denial: A character pretends to not know another language.
• Language Fluency Reveal: When Language Fluency Denial backfires or is exposed.
• Language of Magic: Casting spells by speaking in another language.
• Language of Truth: A language that is literally impossible to lie in.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Replacing the last word you intended to say at the last minute.
• Learning English in the English Dub: When a work is translated into a different language, said language is still portrayed as foreign In-Universe to the characters.
• 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: Obfuscating words by replacing letters with similar-looking numbers and symbols.
• Left Field Description: Describing important bits in unconventional ways that don't necessarily jump out to the reader.
• Letters 2 Numbers: Writing words as numbers with the same pronunciation.
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: A character says, "like" in between every other word.
• Lost Language: An extinct language that nobody knows how to read or translate.
• Lost in Translation: The semantics of a work disappear when translated into another language.
• Low-Literacy Setting: A setting where most people are unable to read or write.
• Lucky Charms Title: Symbols that are not letters are used in a title.
• Lyrical Tic: A singer often uses a particular vocalization in their works.
• Magical Foreign Words: Using words in another language as magic spells.
• Magical Profanity Filter: A magic spell or other in-universe effect that prevents characters from swearing.
• Magick: Adding a "k" transforms it from flashy illusion to spiritual practice.
• Mamet Speak: Characters speak quickly, vulgarly, and over the top of one another.
• Metaphorgotten: A character starts off with a metaphor or analogy, but then gets sidetracked by what the metaphor or analogy implies.
• Microts: Fictional units of time.
• Military Alphabet: Words used instead of letters to spell another word out.
• Misspelling Out Loud: A character tries to spell a word out loud, but either gets it wrong or unintentionally spells a completely different word.
• Mistaken for Name: Characters humorously misunderstand or misinterpret cues or phrases as names.
• Mixed Metaphor: Combining two figures of speech into one weird phrase.
• Mondegreen Gag: A statement is misheard.
• Mouthing the Profanity: When a character needs to say a swear word but can't bring themselves to voice it out loud.
• Multilingual Song: A song sung in more than one language.
• Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: The different dubs of a work have one actor reprising their role for the translations.
• Multiple Reference Pun: Wordplay based on three or more meanings.
• 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: A character makes up a lot of words to sound cool.
• Nerds Speak Klingon: Geeks communicate with one another in the fictional languages of the works they like.
• Never Learned to Read: A character is illiterate.
• Noble Tongue: The upper-class speak a completely different language from the common folk
• 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: Written phrases sound more comedic because of a lack of punctuation
• No Punctuation Period: A work uses no punctuation whatsoever
• Nu Speling: In the future, words are spelled as if they were written or typed by barely-literate children.
• 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: Comedic parodical use of archaic English terms.
• Omniglot: A character who can speak many languages.
• Once for Yes, Twice for No: Trying to make the most of limited communication ability.
• One, Two, Three, Four, Go!: Wordplay revolving around the Japanese word for 'five' sounding like the English word 'go'.
• Orphaned Etymology: Characters use real-world words that should not exist in their universe.
• Otherworldly Communication Failure: Speaking a language not known to humans may be the cause of this trope.
• Overly Literal Transcription: Instructions not meant to be printed out or recited are done so anyway.
• 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: When a fantasy setting spells words differently
• 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: Incorrect use of plural nouns.
• Point of View: The perspective from which a story is told.
• 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...: A character subverts a well-known idiom or proverb for laughs
• Portmanteau: A word that is a combination of two or more individual words.
• The Power of Language: When language itself is a central theme of a work.
• 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: Need to know something is fancy? Give it a Latin motto.
• Pretentious Pronunciation: A word gets pronounced in a pseudo-foreign manner in an attempt to sound fancy.
• Primordial Tongue: One language spoken by the first humans that is the ancestor of all existing languages.
• 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: Avoiding the use of pronouns to conceal a character's gender.
• Prophecies Rhyme All the Time: Prophecies are in rhyme.
• Psmith Psyndrome: A character somehow notices spelling mistakes in spoken language.
• Pun: A play on words.
• Punctuation Changes the Meaning: When the use of punctuation changes the tone of what is being said.
• Punctuation Shaker: Names with punctuation marks in them.
• The Queen's Latin: Characters in historical settings like ancient Rome speak English with British accents.
• Rapid-Fire Descriptors: Using a LOT of adjectives for something.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Fictional characters speak without using filler words, tripping over words, awkward pauses or interrupting each other mid-sentence.
• Real Language Represents Fictional: The author depicts a fictional language used by the characters by using a Real Life foreign language to represent it.
• Recursive Acronym: The acronym stands for the acronym itself.
• Recursive Translation: Translating something back and forth completely mangles it.
• Repeated Rehearsal Failure: Someone recites something over and over to remember it, but ends up messing it up.
• Rich Language, Poor Language: Rich and poor characters are distinguished by their accents and/or dialects.
• Riddle: Word puzzles with nonintuitive answers.
• Robo-Speak: Robots speak very differently from humans.
• Romantic Hyperbole: Using hyperbolic language to express romantic love and loyalty.
• 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: A language used primarily in religious contexts.
• Scanlation: An unofficial translation of a comic.
• Scare Quotes: Using quotation marks to indicate disdain or doubt of a so-called "word".
• Scary Science Words: A character is intimidated by technical-sounding words.
• Sdrawkcab Speech: Speech played or written in reverse.
• 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: Using non-explicit words to allude to sexual acts.
• Shoehorned Acronym: A poorly-constructed acronym.
• Shoehorned First Letter: Forcing an acronym to work by sticking a letter in front of a word where it doesn't belong.
• Single Language Planet: Everyone on this planet speaks the same language.
• Smart People Know Latin: You just know this character's a genius if they can speak Latin.
• Sommelier Speak: Describing wine with overly flowery language.
• Son of an Ape: Non-human characters insult humans using primate terminology.
• Sophisticated as Hell: A character who usually speaks sophisticated and politely suddenly resorts to using slang and profanity.
• Space "X": Want something to sound futuristic? Just add the word "Space" to it.
• Speech-Impeded Love Interest: The main character's love interest has a speech impediment.
• Spell My Name with a "The": A character is frequently addressed with "The" in front of their name.
• Speaking Like Totally Teen: A character uses cheesy slang to appeal to young people, and embarrass themselves as a result.
• Speaking Simlish: Characters speak in an unintelligible language where the meaning of what they say is unknown and irrelevant.
• Speaks in Binary: Communicating in '0's and '1's.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: Most of this character's lines are pop culture references.
• Speech-Centric Work: A work that is particularly dialogue-heavy.
• Spelling for Emphasis: Spelling out a word to emphasise it.
• Spock Speak: Talking in a precise, formal manner void of emotion or slang.
• 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: Characters speak in a language of non-linguistic symbols.
• Stealth Pun: A play on words that is subtle.
• Strange-Syntax Speaker: An unusual word order this character uses.
• Stupidly Long Filler Sound: A ditzy character exaggerates their speech disfluency when asked even the simplest of questions.
• Stutter Stop: A character who usually stutters doesn't when things are serious.
• Suddenly Bilingual: A character suddenly reveals they can speak another language.
• 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.
• Supernatural Language: A language that has a supernatural quality.
• Surprisingly Bad Native Language: A character supposedly speaks in their native tongue, but it's clear that this is not the writers' native tongue.
• Surprisingly Good Foreign Language: A work produced in one language portrays the use of another language accurately.
• Switch to English: Characters begin speaking in another language, then switch to the language of the work for in-universe reasons.
• T-Word Euphemism: Referring to a word as "the [letter] word".
• Tactful Translation: A character refuses to translate something rude into another language.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Even in crucial situations where every second counts, there's always enough time for conversation.
• 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: A character playfully teases another by using a language they don't speak.
• Technical Euphemism: Speaking euphemistically using technical language.
• Tenses: Language used to indicate whether something's in the past, present or future.
• Terse Talker: A character speaks curtly and in very short sentences.
• That Sounds Familiar: Using a corrupted version of a word or phrase whilst not understanding the context of the original.
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: A character insists on being addressed formally.
• Thieves' Cant: Criminals use a secret language or dialect.
• Third-Person Person: Somebody refers to themself in the third-person.
• Tongue Twister: A phrase that is notably difficult to say quickly.
• Totally Radical: Creators use cheesy slang to appeal to young people, and embarrass themselves as a result.
• Translated Cover Version: A cover of a song sung in a different language.
• Translate the Loanwords, Too: Even words that are NOT in the original language end up getting translated into the target language.
• Translation by Volume: A character tries to make themselves understood to foreigners by simply shouting.
• Translation Convention: Characters canonically speaking in another language are presented as speaking the language of the audience.
• Translation Correction: When a translation corrects visual errors in the original.
• Translation Matchmaking: Two unrelated films, through translation, seem related to each other by name.
• Translation Punctuation: Using non-standard punctuation to indicate a different language is being spoken in-universe.
• Translation Style Choices: Cultural differences taken into account when translating a work.
• Translation Train Wreck: A translation that fails miserably.
• Translation with an Agenda: A work is deliberately mistranslated to adhere to an ideology not present in the original work.
• Translation: "Yes": A long statement made in a foreign language becomes ludicrously brief when translated.
• Translator Microbes: A magic device translates speech from one language to another.
• Trolling Translator: The translator intentionally mistranslates what the foreign language speaker is saying.
• Trope Names from Other Languages: An index of tropes with non-English names.
• Trope Names from the French: An index of tropes with French names.
• Trrrilling Rrrs: A character tends to emphasize their Rs.
• Two of Your Earth Minutes: When aliens use planets as descriptors for things that are inherently of that planet anyway.
• 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: A spelling mistake in the title or slogan of the work.
• Untranslated Catchphrase: Even in foreign translations, a character's distinctive catchphrase remains in the original language.
• 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: Misusing punctuation.
• Weapons-Grade Vocabulary: Words that hurt...literally.
• What Song Was This Again?: A dubbed version of a song has completely different lyrics from the original.
• When Is Purple?: Combining the concepts of time, space, and color in a way that makes no sense.
• Wingdinglish: Characters speak English depicted in an alternative alphabet.
• Woolseyism: A translation alters the work's dialogue so it works better in the new language.
• Word Salad Philosophy: A philosophical ramble that is completely nonsensical.
• Writing Lines: A character is punished by being forced to repeatedly write a sentence promising they'll never do what they did wrong again.
• X for Exception: In an alphabetical list, X is represented by a word which does not begin with X.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: Misspelling words to be cool.
• Yiddish as a Second Language: Jewish characters pepper their dialogue with gratuitous Yiddish.
• You Are the Translated Foreign Word: Immediately following up a foreign terminology with its translation.
• 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: Writers deliberately write characters speaking cryptically to keep the audience stumped.
• You No Take Candle: Bad grammar.
• You Say Tomato: More than one accepted way to pronounce a term.