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

I'm not wasting my energy, I'm just stating that there really is nothing to discuss: Basic sounds exactly like English. It's an outlandish premise, but it's the only one that's necessary to accept. Once you've accepted that, you can move on.

 

In that case Mon Mothma really looked like two entirely different people across her life and transformed sometime during the Original Trilogy.

That's the rabbit hole you go down when you assume the magic window.

 

I hated that some character in SW Commander used the word fascist. And I was dismayed that so many people don't know where the word comes from. Also, got accused of being petulant

 

Yep, that was the Twi'lek smuggler Liana Korr who called the Imperials "fascists." It WAS a bit eyebrow-rising, but still didn't bother me too much. ​

Also... "petulant?" What does that word have to do with knowing the etymological connexion between fascim and the lictors' bundles?

 

I never noticed the hot chocolate, or the ducks, even though I must have read both of those books somewhere between 10 and 15 imes when I was, well, between 10 and 15. I loved "that's not exactly my cup of Elba", and I never found "caf" or "fresher" in the least way jarring.

But what really threw me in one later Star Wars book (I think it must've been FotJ or something) was when one character, when asked if they had any information on something, said, "Nothing duracrete yet."

Because, okay, fine, space concrete is duracrete. (Or plasicrete, or permacrete, or whatever.) But that's concrete-the-material, NOT 'CONCRETE'-THE ADJECTIVE! That's not how it works! Worse, you're making it sound like concrete-the-adjective is derived from concrete-the-noun, when in fact it's the other way around. That's JUST NOT DONE!

 

Well, you have to make do with what you have in the movies, my dear. Surely, if Panaka calls Queen Amidala "Your Highness," it must mean that it's acceptable on Naboo.

 

A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY







...far away from what? A long time ago, from when?

 

From our world, from our time. Lucas may have never given a precise date as to when Star Wars took place in the past, but that doesn't mean he didn't have one in mind. Did you know that he once said Willow took place in the 3rd or 4th century BC?

 

So "our world" is allowed to insert itself into the film there, but not elsewhere? That text screams "this is being presented for the benefit of Earth viewers".

 

*Sigh*
Looks like I'm doomed to be marked as wrong. Fair enough.

 

Actually, FOTJ has a couple of things that kind of bug me. By the time FOTJ (and even LOTF, but it became more common in FOTJ) came out, cell phones and text messaging were mainstream. However, the comlinks we've traditionally seen in SW have always been like little microphones or walkie-talkie things. They don't have a screen, is what I'm trying to say. But then suddenly in FOTJ everyone and their dead, dark-side brother is sending "text messages" or something to that effect, and I'm left wondering how the kriff you receive, read, or type a text message on these:

Spoiler

Spoiler

And it really annoyed me.

 

You're entitled to your opinion, I just think there's a lot of interesting stuff to unpack here--it's a microcosm of a much bigger debate re: canon and so on.

 

Well, there are much bigger debates, indeed. Then again, it's a specialized thread in a specialized forum, so...

 

And then there's stuff like this to consider.



Sure enough, I asked this question on Twitter and a German follower replied "obviously they're speaking German!"

 

Well, I didn't see anyone else mention it directly, so I guess I have to...

Space diapers.

 

CooperTFN Whatever work I'm talking about, I'm only discussing the original version (as long as I can speak the language). It's almost a question of intellectual honesty.

 

I really feel any lingual issues are easily remedied by adding the word "space" before said word in question.

Even if you have to do so silently to yourself.

Take the word ship, for example. Ugh. Disgusting abuse of colloquial English.

Clearly it should be space ship.

Buuuuuut...space ship is pretty colloquial too. So maybe it should be space space-ship.

 

The whole ship/starship thing makes me wonder... will we see the Imperial Navy in the new canon? Not the one in space, the seafaring one.*

* Which the Imperial Handbook referred to as the Imperial Maritime Division.

 

Small little nitpick, but... real world politics terms like "left wing" and "right wing" the one or two times they were used in Bloodlines took me out of the universe a little. "Centrist" and "Populist" are real world words too, but in the book, they apply to different things and are defined well enough.

(Also "liberal" in Plagueis. Doubly weird because the word has at least two different meanings on Earth, depending on where you are).

 

"Liberal" or "Conservative" wouldn't bother me. Even "left-wing" and "right-wing" wouldn't bug me -- even though I know those terms derive from seating arrangements in the Estates General during the French Revolution, I could write it off as a translation convention or a reference to something in galactic history which coincidentally resulted in the same seating arrangement. "Tory", "Whig", "New Democrat", "Grand Old Party", or similar very specific or obscure references would make me frown.

 

That's always been my take on it, too. I think I'd only be bothered by real-life terms showing up in SW if they were aggressively colloquial and relatively recent --- bootylicious, smackdown, jumping the shark, etc. Then again, "gung ho" showed up a few times in the EU and I thought it was delightful.

It also goes without saying that a term like Kafkaesque, that's by definition making a comparison to a real-world person, would make no sense in SW, but I doubt I'd be fazed if I saw something called a Pyrrhic Victory, even though the word Pyrrhic is derived from the name of a real person. It's a few steps removed from Kafkaesque in that it's not a direct comparison, and it's also had a couple of millennia to become a catch-all term, which no doubt helps too. That's the thing about colloquial language --- with enough time it becomes less colloquial and more an accepted part of speech, like "down the rabbit hole" has. Maybe in a few decades, nobody would bat an eye if they read about a Jedi laying the smackdown on a bootylicious Sith. Or about a SW character having a bae. "Bae" is probably no weirder now than "nerd" was when Dr. Seuss invented it. Nowadays, if Mara playfully said to Luke "You're such a nerd," none of us would bat an eye.

 

Dr. Seuss invented "nerd"?

 

This is reminding me of how funny it was when A New Dawn hit and everyone was like "omg guyz they said 'elevator' instead of 'turbolift' . . . will the new canon change everything!?"

And then Rebels aired and "turbolift" was back in.