History Main / CallARabbitASmeerp

* ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'' takes place in the far future where humans left Earth to colonize an alien planet, Vertumna. To distance themselves from their Earth origins, the Strato and Helio colonies give different names for Earth technology such as "hearspeaks" for earphones and "virtspace helmets" for VR helmets.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SofiaTheFirst'', the people of Enchancia celebrate Wassalia, which is a combination between Christmas and Hanukkah. One of the books has Sofia celebrating Christmas with her classmates, but WordOfGod has dismissed it as non-canon.

** Various monsters map pretty easily to standard fantasy monsters, with stals, poes, bokoblins and moblins being easy examples. Don't recognize the names? They're skeletons, ghosts, goblins and orcs. Several other enemies are also regular animals with unusual names, such as ropes and keese -- or, colloquially, snakes and bats.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' episode "The Royal Drum", Grandpa Smurf tells a story of when he went to Africa. The Smurfs being a reclusive medieval European culture, he obviously doesn't know what the local animals are called so he refers to a giraffe as a "long-necked leaf-eater," a herd of zebras as "black-and-white striped horses" and a lion as a "Smurf-toothed monster cat". The other Smurfs don't believe him until some of the animals are brought to their country by the princess of an African tribe that Grandpa Smurf befriended.

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' series consistently refers to common clucking barnyard fowl as "Cuccos". One character even refers to a cowardly character as a "Cucco". It's less out-there than most examples, since it's based on the Japanese equivalent of "cock-a-doodle-doo" (''kokke'''kokko'''h!'' --> ''kokko''). Mind you, this is rampant throughout the series. Crows are called Guays, bats are Keese (except in [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Termina]], where there are Keese and Bad Bats, classified as two different species), vultures are Takkuri, snakes are Ropes, ghosts are Poes, skeletons are Stalfos, zombies are Redeads, mummies are Gibdos. It's important to bear in mind, however, that almost all of these examples of mundane things (like Cuccos) have extraordinary powers. To use the Cucco example, chickens cannot instantly form vast indestructible {{Determinator}} flying swarms to avenge fallen brethren, whereas Cuccos ''do''.
** To make things more confusing, it seems [[SubvertedTrope chickens do exist by name]] in Hyrule, though for the most part they're interchangeable with Cuccos. Link obtains one as a quest item in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime Ocarina of Time]]'', and in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild Breath of the Wild]]'', a Cucco enthusiast argues that if his Cuccos couldn't fly and carry heavy loads, [[LampshadeHanging "they'd just be chickens."]]

** Various monsters map pretty easily to standard fantasy monsters, with stals, bokoblins and moblins being easy examples. Don't recognize the names? They're skeletons, goblins and orcs.

** In one early Foghorn Leghorn cartoon, Henery Hawk is left in the dark as to what a chicken really looks like (his grandfather made up all kinds of lies about it to dissuade him from accompanying him to get a chicken, as he would get in the way). When he sees Foghorn, he doesn't think that he is a chicken, but rather a "loud-mouthed shnook". The rooster spends much of the cartoon trying to convince Henery otherwise. Eventually, Henery throws a lit stick of dynamite into the barnyard dog's doghouse, and Foghorn tries to stop the dynamite from blowing up, fearing he will get blamed for it. Naturally, of course, he fails; the dynamite explodes, and the dog slams Foghorn against the ground repeatedly as punishment, after which he calls him a "no-good chicken". That's all Henery needs to hear -- he knocks out Foghorn with a shovel and drags him off, not caring whether he is a chicken or a shnook, only that he would be good in his oven.

* In the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' series:

** In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', the main characters [[OutsideContextProblem have no frame of reference]] for [[spoiler:'''modern-day ballistic missiles''']], so they refer to them as "javelins of light".
* In ''VideoGame/FreedomWars'', most food aside from the tasteless nutritional paste most denizens of the Panopticon eat gets this treatment, since resources to produce real food are scarce. These include "So-Chlo" (an exotic drink which is actually carbonated water flavored with '''so'''dium '''chlo'''ride, AKA: table salt) and Q-Cumbers (cucumbers).

*** ''VisualNovel/HiveswapFriendsim'' has some fun with this. At one point, you're offered a meal of "grubcakes with boiled tree blood and churned dairy product"--IE, pancakes with syrup and butter. When you wonder if the drink is "brown bean juice", you get a bemused "No, that's just coffee" in response.
** The Felt, meanwhile, have the game of table stickball, which is in every way identical to pool.

* In ''Literature/TheBookOfTheNamed'', fire is referred to as the "Red Tongue". Ratha learns to tame it but believes it to be a living being, which she calls her "creature".

* ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'' uses dinosaur terminologies similar to ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'', including "Earthwalkers" for Triceratops, "Snowhorns" for Woolly Mammoths, and "Red Eyes" for Tyrannosaurus.

* In ''Webcomic/TheLegendOfGenji'', comic books were invented by [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra Varrick]], who calls them "comicals".

* ''FanFic/RocketshipVoyager'': Justified. What we would call "computers" are referred to as "electronic minds", but this version of "Voyager" is so low-tech that "computer" retains its original meaning, i.e. a person who does mathematical computation.

* ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'': No, those aren't swords, they're "nails".

* Superpowers are rarely called anything more obtuse than "powers" or "abilities," but the people of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' call them "quirks." This is, in part, a {{Woolseyism}} — in Japanese, the word used translates more like “individuality”, which doesn’t really roll off the tongue. Before the term “quirk” took off, they were known as “meta abilities”. “Quirk” came into common usage after the mother of a child with a meta ability, at a time when such children were rare and considered strange and frightening, described his powers as simply being a quirk of his, reframe them as as just another aspect of his personhood rather than his defining characteristic. Her tolerance got her murdered, but when meta abilities became commonplace and the world adjusted to their existence, the Japanese government codified the word “quirk” in new laws regulating their usage.

* Superpowers are rarely called anything more obtuse than "powers" or "abilities," but the people of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' call them "quirks." This is, in part, a {{Woolseyism}} — in Japanese, the word used translates more like “individuality”, which doesn’t really roll off the tongue. This is particularly odd because 80% of their population has a superhuman characteristic, so it's more quirky for someone to ''not'' have a "quirk." This is an [[TheArtifact artifact]] from when "quirks" were rare and quirky.

* Superpowers are rarely called anything more obtuse than "powers" or "abilities," but the people of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' call them "quirks." This is, in part, a {{Woolseyism} — in Japanese, the word used translates more like “individuality”, which doesn’t really roll off the tongue. This is particularly odd because 80% of their population has a superhuman characteristic, so it's more quirky for someone to ''not'' have a "quirk." This is an [[TheArtifact artifact]] from when "quirks" were rare and quirky.

* Superpowers are rarely called anything more obtuse than "powers" or "abilities," but the people of ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' call them "quirks." This is particularly odd because 80% of their population has a superhuman characteristic, so it's more quirky for someone to ''not'' have a "quirk." This is an [[TheArtifact artifact]] from when "quirks" were rare and quirky.

We're [[RecycledINSPACE in space]], so regular old Earth flora and fauna just won't do. Solution: Introduce creatures (or sports, or political institutions, or dishes, etc.) that are just like familiar Earth concepts that the audience will recognize but '''[[RecycledINSPACE IN SPACE]]''', and give them funny names.

* In ''Webcomic/TheLegendOfGenji'', comics were invented by [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra Varrick]], who calls them "comicals".

* In ''Webcomic/TheLegendOfGenji'', comics were invented by [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorrs Varrick]], who calls them "comicals".

* ''Fanfic/MassEffectClashOfCivilizations'': Thessia has animals called Shias that the Asari keep as pets, and are the only thing on the entire planet that genetically match them. [[spoiler: In this setting, the Asari are actually a sub-species of humans and shias are dogs]].

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* In ''Manga/BlueRamun'', the [[ThePowerOfBlood magically curative]] blue blood of the Blue Ramun tribespeople is called "ramun."

* ''The Death of Captain Marvel'' shows different terms for the same illness: cancer:

* Satirized in ''Film/AmazonWomenOnTheMoon,'' in which the Amazon women speak English but inexplicably have a different word for "year."

-->'''Tommy Saunders:''' What are you talking, like a drink, or something?
-->'''Harrold:''' No, like a fucking smoothie, you know, like you would smooth your clothes out with.
-->'''Tommy Saunders:''' An ''iron''?

* [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Earth#Animal_species Wookieepedia]] has an exhaustive list of this trope as it applies to ''Franchise/StarWars''. Dice, for example, are called "chance cubes" (although actual dice with pips instead of colors have appeared and gone by "dice" in the EU), guns, as in [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter kinetic firearms]], are called "Slugthrowers", etc.
** The ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' is a grab bag of names — looking at alcoholic drinks alone, there's lomin-ale, Corellian Whiskey (with brands like Whyren's Reserve), lum, juri juice, [[Literature/DeathStar A Walk In The Phelopean Forest]] (even the bartender doesn't know what's with the name), Savareen Brandy, and a [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Alcoholic_beverages lot more.]] There are occasional subversions; a duck is still a duck, for example.

-->'''Solo:''' Beckett, you see them? They still on us? Beckett, did you hear me? Are they on us?
-->'''Beckett:''' Like rashnold on a kalak.
-->'''Solo:''' I don't know what that means.
-->'''Beckett:''' Like a gingleson's pelt.
-->'''Solo:''' What!? Are they or aren't they!?
-->'''Beckett:''' Yes, they're still on us!

* In the ''Film/Underworld2003'' series, the sworn enemies of the vampires are not werewolves, they're Lycans (though Selene does call them werewolves in the first film when telling Michael about the centuries-old conflict that he has just found himself in the middle of). Justified in the sequel and the prequel, which both feature first-generation werewolves that are related to Lycans, but do have a few key differences. First-generation werewolves retain very little, if any, of their original human minds, have longer snouts and are covered nearly head-to-toe with fur in their wolf forms, and are permanently stuck in their wolf forms, unable to ever revert back to human form. Lycans, on the other hand, retain all of their original human minds, have shorter snouts and very little fur in their wolf forms, and are able to shift back and forth between wolf and human forms at will. Or it could simply be short for lycanthrope, from the greek wolf-man. The commentary track for the first film actually admits that "lycan" is a contraction of "lycanthrope," and that they used it because they thought "werewolf" would sound cheesy. [[SarcasmMode As opposed to "vampire,"]] [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer which lends it that touch of classic elegance.]]

* The ''Literature/ChaosTimeline'' often does this. America is called Atlantis, teddy bears are ''mishkas'' since they were invented in Russia, computer hackers are ''Logos'' (from 'logic'), {{angst}} is called ''horreur'', a blitzkrieg is a ''molniya'' (Russian for 'lightning'), tanks are ''Walzen'' ('steamrollers' in German), capitalism is ''monetarism'' etc. Justified, since history diverged in 1200 and people could well invent different names for things.

* Dragaerans from Creator/StevenBrust's ''Literature/{{Dragaera}}'' novels refer to all predatory birds as "hawks", even if they're owls, shrikes, or whatever. There are occasional mentions of an animal called a "mock-man", which is probably a monkey or small ape to judge by its descriptions.
** Dragaerans also lump all alcoholic drinks derived from fruit together as "wine", even if they're created via an entirely different process. In one of the novels narrated by a Dragaeran author, the word "brandy" appears ''in italics'', being a foreign word used by Easterners to distinguish that particular "wine" from others.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* Inventing descriptive, smeerp-ish names for animals has become [[https://www.reddit.com/r/ProperAnimalNames/ a major internet meme]]. Examples include "Nope" (a spider), "Nope Rope" (a snake), "Danger Floof" (a bear), "Lunchopotamus" (a pig), "Majestic Sea Flap-flap" (a stingray), "Fart Squirrel" (a skunk), "Cat Bird" (an owl), "Giraffe Sheep" (a llama), and "Trash Panda" (a raccoon). As for rabbits themselves, they aren't "Smeerps" but. . . "Booplesnoots".

** The Aiel are growing ''zemai'' instead of corn, ''algode'' instead of cotton and ''t'mat'' for tomato. While these smeerps (and the Seanchan ones, too) are at least partially {{justified|Trope}}, being unknown outside the Aiel Waste, this is not so with tabac (this smeerp tends to get lost in translation, anyway).