'Earthisms' to be avoided, and their alternatives

For refrigerator, I used the term "cold storage unit". I know, I know...how original

anakin_girl and zaphod_beeblebrox :
Thanks for the links to the websites for Star Wars names. I seriously didn't know they were out there. D'oh, I wish I'd known sooner because trying to come up with new and original Star Wars names is a pain in the arse.
Lady Rebel

 

With animals the way I figure it if you have humans then you could also have other Earth species. As has been said we've seen horses and ducks so anything reasonably common that could have been transplanted to other planets with human colonists rather than becoming extinct could pop up IMO.

 

Maybe cigarras & nicsticks are two different things...

I did put cats in, on the theory that where there are dogs, there should be cats. And I thought "pittens" was just... well... I just call them cats.

 

Somebody mentioned Luke's thoughts of his old dog in the novelization of ANH, well I thought that a lot of the novelizations seemed Earthish to me. Lucas is a good screen writer, but a bad author. And what about religions? I mean in a galaxy of goggles there has to be some religions.

 

George didn't write the ANH novelisation, it was Alan Dean Foster, but they published it under George's name. That's why Foster wrote "Splinter Of The Mind's Eye", too. They were thinking of using SOTME for the movie instead of ESB. He wrote both of them.


Dana

 

Whe it comes to profanities and curses, I stick with words that have already been used. Italics are movie lines, bold is me:

Han to Jabba, ANH: Come see me yourself, don't send one of these twerps.

Leia in "Transient Mentor:" I?d heard a little Huttese here and there; that language had superb curse words, which is why Daddy wouldn?t teach it to me. Perhaps Oched and those twerps would lay off if I could just spit a few well-timed profanities their way. Note of explanation: She's ten.

Obi-Wan: Some damn fool ideaistic crusade...

Han, heading out to find Luke on Hoth: Then I'll see you in hell! Though I just as often use the term Chaos; Vader used it in the novelization of ANH when he was crushing that Rebel captain's neck.

Earthly profanities, such as Ship High In Transit, Fornication Under Consent of the King, or @$$, throw me right out of the world of the story. (The first two obviously have stories behind them.) Profanity bothers me anyway, so the less there is, the happier this reader is. (Don't mean to lecture, that is just my opinion.)

When I would break one of the Ten Commandments (Don't take the name of God in vain), I make my Jedi characters say Force instead. My other characters either say Force or Gods (in a more pagan sense) or invoke the specific name of a god.

Some descriptive words also bother me, too. I was beta-ing a story where a Padawan lets her best friend braid her hair for her. He (romance, obviously) inhales her scent, intoxicated by the smell of watermelon. You might as well have hit me with a two-by-four if you wanted to get me back to reality. I suggested that the story be tweaked so that she had some namana-scented shampoo, or just generalize it to fruit. I can't even say lavender- or lilac-colored eyes, even though that's the color one of my characters has. I keep to purple or amethyst. I know, amethyst is an Earthly gemstone. I go with Zahn on that - Mara has emerald eyes, so gemstones are okay. But flowers or fruit names, nope.

Daughter_of_Yubyub said, A lot of foods can be given a more GFFA feel by just tacking the name of an appropriate world in front of them. I have to disagree; that's another jolt to reality. If an author is going to take the time to describe it more specifically than meat, vegetables, fruit, or soup, it's better to be creative. In Shadows of the Empire, Prince Xizor is mulling over what to order for dinner. He's thinking about having Kashyyyk land shrimp. *Slaps forehead* It isn't that hard, I came up with the leia (yes, Leia has a flower name) and vineblossom flowers and a kind of fruit called a kiri for a fic, and I think they worked out all right.

Random responses to terms previously mentioned:

Luke thinking about a dog, and Obi-Wan saying that even a duck must be taught to swim are jolts. Perhaps tweaking the Latin species name to give an idea of what the beastie looks like - lupines, for example? Anyone who's read about Harry Potter's professor, the werewolf named Lupin, would recognize it okay. And additional description would fill in the blanks for others. Quadruped, coarse fur, bared teeth, long muzzle, that kind of thing.

I use frig for a fridge. Didn't know about the conservator thing.

Niles Ferrier, the ship thief, smokes cigarras. That's as close to cigarettes as I've heard of in the SW universe.

 

I don't know if this has been mentioned, but I thought of some other biggies.

Days of the week. No saying "Leia had a meeting with Mon Mothma on Tuesday." or "Han slept in because it was Saturday."

American units of measurement. (Inches, miles, etc.) Metric is the standard for Star Wars stories, I think.

Time--ten o'clock, nine-thirty, etc. I think the standard for that is using military time.

 

Military time seems to mostly get used, although there were a couple exceptions. Chalk it up to the infamous continuity people.

I don't think I've ever seen non-metric units.

 

Yeah, I'm American, and I try to use the terms that every other English speaker in the world would use. I use metric units for everything, and I use a few British expressions because some of the characters are essentially British and it's in-character for them.

Jae Angel

 

jedi_keladry
Luke thinking about a dog, and Obi-Wan saying that even a duck must be taught to swim are jolts. Perhaps tweaking the Latin species name to give an idea of what the beastie looks like - lupines, for example?

I know what you mean but the reverse can be true.

In Survivor's Quest the Geroon have animals called "wolvkils" and these are feral versions of a long snouted predator creature the Geroons once domesticated as pets.

Now when I read that I got jolted out because it seemed so pointless to say "wolvkil" and give a description rather than "wolf" or even "their dead homeworlds equivalent of a wolf"

Luke used to bullseye Womp Rats you know, not Womp Rattus Rattus

 

Luke used to bullseye Womp Rats you know, not Womp Rattus Rattus

It's all a matter of taste. Whatever works for you is what you should go with. My comments are from my POV.

 

Solution for "what in the world".

"What in the worlds?"

 

I hate seeing Mr. or Mrs. in anything. Don't know why, but I immediately stop reading after seeing Mr. Skywalker.

Oh, and, of course, God.

JS

 

I don't have a problem with Mr. or Mrs. But I wonder what you would use in there place? My Lady/My Lord? Even more formal the Mr./Mrs. Besides, the languages I've studied have some why to distinguish the genders.

Though you cant really call me an expert since I only know 2.

 

I think I've seen it as Master and Mistress. Threepio uses it, and he knows his etiquette.

 

Where I saw it, Palpatine was addressing Padme as Mrs. Amidala (she wasn't senator anymore). I figured that they could call her lady or something. I like the Master/Mistress idea. Even though it practically means the same thing as Mr./Mrs., it just makes the galaxy seem more far away and not as earth-like.

Does that make any sense?

JS

 

Solution for "what in the world".

"What in the worlds?"

I do what Han does when they come out of hyperspace into the Alderaan system (sans Alderaan): "What the..."

I figured that they could call her lady or something. I like the Master/Mistress idea. Even though it practically means the same thing as Mr./Mrs., it just makes the galaxy seem more far away and not as earth-like.

Does that make any sense?

Absolutely. I do the same double-standard thing that we used to have in the English language - unmarried, she's Mistress, married, she's Madam. No matter what he is, he's Master.

I wish I could think of another word besides Master (that isn't Mr.); I'm writing a fic of Ben-in-hiding and if he's in hiding, it feels weird to have someone call him by the same title that was his when there were Jedi. Know what I mean? Any ideas without resorting to Monsieur? Can't use another language, that would be worse than Master.

 

That is a tough one, because I think most those alternatives have been taken in the SW universe ('Lord', for instance, which just sounds silly anyway). Threepio does try to refer to Luke as 'Sir' before calling him Master, though. This has in our language a connection with being a knight (irony ) but doesn't necessarily have to in the GFFA.

It just seems that using another language's terms, like Monsieur or Signor, would have even more of an 'earth' connotation. And using the German 'herr' just reminds people who've seen Indiana Jones too many times of Nazis


-sj loves kevin spacey

 

*beats head on wall* Can no one spell sinor? It's senor, senora, and senorita! And I take it you've seen 'em to many times Jones? I just ignore that. And 'Captain' is used on any pilot.

 

But when we refer to what 3PO says, you have to take into account that droids aren't considered equals to live beings. So when he says Master or Mistress its because he's a servant. Where as Mr. or Mrs. is simply a formal gender designation. That's the kicker in trying to find something star warsy, there just isn't one unless you make up words for both, or use another language.

 

Dev, I have indeed seen the Indy films too many times. How did you guess?

Oh sorry, sorry, signor is how it's spelled in Italian. I never took Spanish, only French, and I have a friend here who's from Italy so I get very confused.

You know what, though, I'm not sure I see why spelling out Misses, Miss, or Mister would seem too out of the GFFA...

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

*Keladry throws up her hands*

Thanks for the suggestions! I'll go with either Master or Sir.

 

I need help for a name for a Wal-Mart type store (without using Wal-Mart) for my fic (link in sig). Any suggestions?

 

In one of the X-Wing books (I think it might be the first one), Wedge calls Corran "Mr. Horn." And since that's an official LucasBook publication I think it's okay to use Mr. or Mrs., but maybe sparingly. Otherwise it gets too Earthly.

 

On occassion i want my character to have a pet, like a dog or a cat. What do you use instead?

In Balance Point Jacen refers to a skitter kit, or was it a whisper kit? Well it's something like that. Hope that helps.




-Vicster