Resource Earth Words and Their Star Wars Equivalents - a helpful index for writers

Well, I don't know about the others, but for butter there's Blue Butter and Bantha Butter in the GFFA.

 

I've seen turbolift for elevator.

 

I prefer to stay away from turbolift, since it's so obviously a Trek term.

But I was just looking at ROTS and in the opening rescue scenes, they just say 'elevator'. So, I guess it's an officially canon term.

I suppose blue butter might work, but I'm more inclined to make of some name and call it <name>-spread. But I'm still puzzling over what to use for pancake and waffle. And toast, too.

 

In I, Jedi Corran Horn eats "breakfast cakes", which I took to be like pancakes or waffles.

 

I figure "syrup" is a perfectly legitimate word choice, and it's up to the author whether to hassle about the existence of maple trees. If not, well, there are many kinds of syrup even on Earth; I would imagine there are probably a multitude of fruits, vegetables, tree-saps, and possibly fungi, lichens, bacteria, and even animals from which you can make a sticky-sweet liquid in the GFFA. (For that matter, imagine the variety of grains you could come up with.)

Maybe they've got some breakfast restaurants where you don't get one choice of syrup, or a few on the table, but at particularly well-stocked place, you get a menu to choose from several hundreds of syrup options. And of course, given the variety on Earth alone, in a galaxy with thousands or millions of inhabited planets you should also have a wide range of grains and recipes from each of numerous planets...

 

Ya'll are making me want to write an entire story about the life of a waffle maker in the GFFA.

 

The Cloud City ice cream maker guy could use the cones.

 

Plaeklite could be Bakelite, I think. This is the kind of thread I'd refer others to :B

 

I've seen Life Day used a lot for "birthday" in fanfiction, but in profic "birthday" is just "birthday." In Exile, for example, Ben passes his fourteenth birthday on Ziost, carrying out a mission for Jacen. He receives a recorded message from his parents:

"Ben," Mara said. "In case you haven't noticed--you're fourteen!"
"Congratulations on another birthday," Luke said.

--Exile, page 241

In Sacrifice, Mara and Ben discuss Ben's absence on his birthday and Mara proposes a family get-together for his next (page 49, hardcover edition).

 

I would use 'shelter' or 'portable shelter' instead of 'tent' since Han Solo put up a shelter in TESB on Hoth. In JA#10 Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan use 'sleep mats' instead of of sleeping bags if that helps.

 

Isn't lifeday supposed to be a Wookie-exclusive thing?
That's one of the tricky things about finding equivalents: Planetary culture. Just because a word is said in star wars does not mean that's the way it is said everywhere in star wars.

I like the idea of eating cake for breakfast.
I think I should try that.

 

From my vague, hazy traumatized memories of the Star Wars Holiday Special I got the impression that Life Day was a Galactic holiday and the story (such as it was) revolved around Chewie getting back to his family for it.

But I don't use Life Day in my fics. I would just be too painful.

 

Ohhh, it came from that? Well that's depressing. Frankly, that would make it more of an equivalent to Christmas than birthdays.



..Actually, scratch that. 'life' applies more to birth than giving or conception or whatever. I think it would apply better as an Easter or Spring Festival equivalent.

 

The index here lists "naming day" as the Star Wars equivalent for "birthday." Can someone please cite where "naming day" shows up in profic, because I'm having trouble recalling. Thanks!

 

I looked up 'naming day' on wookieepeida, but I didn't recognize the source and it only referenced a Hutt getting a rancor for a naming day gift.

Does anyone have a good term for 'sandwich' for the GFFA? 'Sandwich' sounds too terrestrial to me.

 

How about "mayday", as in the distress signal? Is there a canon equivalent to it, ala nuBSG's 'krypter'?

 

Unlocked and bumped

 

I think some of these terms or searching for terms get a bit too obsessive. For example, changing sandwich to something else because it's 'too terrestrial' also changes the term "sandwiched between 'this' and 'that'". Sometimes it's better not to over analyze. If you call a 'sandwich' a 'stuffed sliced starch-loaf' (came up with this on the spur of the moment) or other ridiculous made-up name, your readers would be scratching their heads.

I prefer the KISS method of writing (keep things simple). This doesn't mean dumbing things down for those with inferior intellects. It just means don't unnecessarily complicate things.

 

Does anyone know of a SW equivalent for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?

 

How about plastic wrap? I've started using "static wrap" for lack of an official equivalent.

 

Yay! I found this thread! It was on my profile since '08 or so and now can be re-linked!

There needs to be a Star Wars word for 'fixed link.'

*goes off to look for 'What was the name of that fic?' thread*

 

I confess I haven't read the whole thread for an answer but... but how long does it take to travel in hyperspace say from the outer rim to the mid rim or to Coruscant?

Thanks for the help
Lea

 

That kind of information would be a great help to me, too. I always end up being really vague about how long people spend in space, because I don't know what is reasonable.

 

There has to be a geek in this board somewhere that knows the answer.

Maybe we should get Bon Jovi to call George Lucus and ask him. (reference to a Big and Rich song with Jedi in the title. He said they could use Jedi but not Jedis. Jedi is singular and plural.)

 

Not here, but it seems there is a geek out there who has calculated such things.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Propulsion/Propulsion2.html

However, even then it seems the speeds can vary wildly, and you need to know the distance involved first, which isn't always available. Should work for a rough guide, though.