Lit Terms that shouldn't be used in Star Wars novels?

I hadn't gotten around the reading Tarkin until just recently. In the book, Tarkin used the term "He's in my corner." I have been REALLY into pro wrestling lately, and realized that the term must have originated from there or a similar sport, like MMA. As far as I know, neither of those sports exist in the Star Wars universe, so Tarkin should not have been using that term. Is there any other examples of this you guys know in Star Wars novels?

TL;DR: Is there terms that shouldn't be used in the Star wars universe because they have distinct origins in our world but are anyway?

PS: One could argue that the entire language should not be used, but that's not the point.

 

Fixed.

And originated from MMA? Oy...feeling even older still.

That's a pretty old, extremely general term that I'm sure predates even boxing.

 

Do you see the trapdoor these guys are near to?



Note that it is closed and all manner of horrors cannot get loose.

The language Q is a similar trapdoor for SW, unleashing all manner of horrors upon the forum if opened!

 

It's all colloquially translated into Earthese anyway. Get a grip.

 

As well, at least in Legends EU, there was a sport called 'Shockboxing' so it still makes since in universe.

 

Boxing didn't even cross my mind. I feel quite stupid now.

 

Well, you're in good company, then. Welcome to the club

 

As the smoke cleared, Poe gazed in shock as Rey and Finn stood unscathed, surrounded by bodies of several stormtroopers with charred Blaster holes in their chestplates.

"It was lit," Rey said, to which Finn nodded in agreement.

 

Probably shockboxing.

Anyway, several other terms whose out-of-universe etymologies broke readers' suspension of disbelief can be found here.

 

Honestly, there really isn't anything I'd include on the list because it's all being translated into English from "Basic" or whatever language the characters are speaking anyway. (Or translated into whatever other languages SW books are translated into.) It all depends on how it's used in the story. If the story and characters are good, there's little that can suck me out of it. Now if those things are bad...then yeah, I'll get sucked out really easily.

 

I'll be completely honest and say I'd love them to take this and run with it. Make it shockboxing. And make Tarkin a boxing fan. Taking the expression and ignoring the language it's spoken in on the page (English in this case, or whatever language you're reading in), the implicit subtext here is what's important -- it's a boxing term, and if there is space boxing in SW already as jSarek noted, we can say yup, NEU Wilhuff quite the outdoorsy buff who likes to watch his weekend boxing. Adds so much more to his (increasingly bizarre but that's ok) NEU persona.

 

...isn't that argument really just "I think it would be cool if Tarkin was a boxing fan?"

 

Really, it's all about how deep down the rabbit hole you wanna go. Like you might say that "down the rabbit hole" is too specific for a Star Wars character to say, since rabbits are Earth animals, and argue that they should say "down the space slug hole" instead--but the entire basis for the metaphor comes from Alice in Wonderland anyway. And if there are "space slugs," are there "slugs"? And if we can have slugs, why not rabbits? Or maybe you could call the rabbit a Lepus and name him Jaxxon, but then Lepus is just the Latin word for rabbit. And speaking of Latin, can someone talk about being "romantic" without implying the existence of the Roman Empire? And what's a duck, anyway?

Basically, you can either be Tolkien, and actually think all this stuff through, or you can just wing it. Some people will be bothered by some things, others by other things, and you can certainly try to avoid really obvious references that will take people out of the story--but it's waaaaay too late for Star Wars to really start thinking this through.

 

Watch boxing?

He's a shockboxer from way back.



He used to chase mouse droids to work on his speed. That's how they used to do it in the old days. If you can catch a mouse droid, you can catch a blaster bolt.

 

Yes, I can see how hot chocolate would seem out of place.

Wait.

.........

Do you know what you just did there?

 

Yeah, took me a second to catch that one, then I was like omg it has two meanings like a pun.

It totally ambushed my brain and I was like:


Man, my Star Wars is out of shape. I need a montage.

 

Well, my work here has already been done.

 

I just don't want to see the new novels use common English terms like "bathroom" instead of "fresher," when we've been reading about 'freshers for twenty years. There's a lot of good Star Warsy language that was built up over time in the Legends EU...hope we keep it.

 

Sorry, I got thrown out of the thread when someone said "mouse droid."

 

The people of the GFFA speak Basic, which, by coincidence, sounds exactly the same as English. We can't use the "translation convention" device, because it raises more questions than it answers. If there is a translation convention going on, how come some many Aurebesh writings can be directly transcribed into English? They translated the language for the audience, but not the letters? It's as if, in an American movie taking place in Greece, every inscription was in English, but written in the Greek alphabet.

 

Hammerhead, Walrusman, Wolfman, "Then I'll see you in hell!", "Are you an angel?", "Roger, roger"

Star Wars has had these Earth references from the beginning. It would be hard for something like Hot Chocolate to pull me out of a story.

 

The entire framework of Star Wars from literally the beginning is that we're being told fairy tales, from "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away", in different dramatic and artistic works, which include movies, books, and comics.

Sometimes they get details wrong. Oops, this production forgot to put women on Yavin. Oops, this version of telling the story suggested Luke saw an older Anakin rather than his youthful idealized image of his Dad.

All versions don't really know the language these made up people really spoke or wrote, so they fake it to make it as consistent as they can while still looking cool.

This really, really isn't something that one should need to exert any amount of energy to defend or fight against.