History Main / CallARabbitASmeerp

** There are also hobbes (goblins) and hollow men (undead skeletons).

** In 4th Edition, there are monsters called the Macetail Behemoth and the Bloodspike Behemoth, which have an uncanny resemblance to an ankylosaur and a stegosaur respectively. The 4E names may be inspired by the ''Eberron'' example above.

** Several editions have included large, flightless, predatory birds called Axe Beaks, of which the original description in the 1st Edition ''Monster Manual'' clearly indicated the creature is in fact a ''Phorusrhacid'', or "terror bird". Why they didn't go with the better-known (and frankly cooler-sounding) nickname is beyond us.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' series films, forklifts are referred as "pitties" because, in the first film, they all served as the pit crews for the racecars.

* 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, reframing 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.

* Chumbucket in ''VideoGame/MadMax'' has no idea what a dog is actually called, so when Max arrives with one in tow he refers to it as a "Dinki-Di", after the numerous cans of Dinki-Di brand dog food scattered throughout the Great White.

** Also applies to some diseases. Dysentery is generally called "bloody flux", though the Meereenese call it "pale mare". Chickenpox is "redspots", while stomach cancer is "crabs in the belly", Greyscale seems to be inspired by leprosy, as it has similar diagnoses.

** In the Japanese version of VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG, in the battle against Exor, his mouth is named... "mouth". But in the english version, it's named "Neosquid" for no discernible reason.

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* ''[[TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}} Cyberpunk RED]]'' has "Agents" which are basically smartphones. This is because of the original editions of ''Cyberpunk'' from the 1980s/1990s were set in the [[{{Zeerust}} futuristic year of 2020]] where nothing similar to a smartphone existed. ''RED'' was released in actual year 2020, so it has a more "modern" vision of the future, [[ZeerustCanon even if keeping some of that zeerust]].

* ''[[TabletopGame/{{Cyberpunk}} Cyberpunk RED]]'' has "Agents" which are basically smartphones. This is because of the original editions from the 1980s/1990s were set in the [[Zeerust futuristic year of 2020]] where nothing similar to a smartphone existed. ''RED'' was released in actual year 2020, so it has a more "modern" vision of the future, [[ZeerustCanon even if keeping some of that zeerust]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresofWinnieThePooh'' has elephants, weasels, and jaguars called Heffalumps, Woozles, and Jagulars. The first two are based on how the real Christopher Robin pronounced the animals' names. Jagulars haven't been seen in the franchise at all.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheManyAdventuresofWinniethePooh'' has elephants, weasels, and jaguars called Heffalumps, Woozles, and Jagulars. The first two are based on how the real Christopher Robin pronounced the animals' names. Jagulars haven't been seen in the franchise at all.

** Shrimp = yobshrimp or Surabat shrimp

** In a less-convoluted form of this, members of the species ''Rangifer tarandus'' are called "caribou" when they live in Alaska or the Canadian Arctic... even though when Europeans first encountered them, the ''exact same animals'' were known to them in Russia and the Nordic Countries as "reindeer".

* "[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3823381/1/Sphinxes-and-Astrea-Portas Sphinxes and Astrea Portas]]" opens with [[Series/StargateSG1 SG-1]] visiting a world where the human population live in harmony with 'sphinxes', and it's only after meeting David Xanatos and Dominique Destine that the SGC learn that sphinxes were originally known on Earth as 'WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyes}}'.

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS2E07WherePleasantFountainsLie Where Pleasant Fountains Lie]]": Hysperian renamed all of their technology to sound like fantasy genre terminology, although it's the same kind of stuff as any spacefaring race uses. Warp drives, for instance, are "dragon's blood engines".

* White Wolf games in general do this a lot, especially [[TabletopGame/OldWorldOfDarkness both]] [[TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness lines]] of the World of Darkness imprint. Each supernatural faction seems to have multiple terms for themselves, the other supernatural groups, and normal humans. E.g., they're not ''[[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]]'', they're Kindred, Damned, the Get of Caine, Servants of the Wyrm, etc. They're not ''mages'', they're Awakened, Enlightened, [[RealityWarper Reality Deviants]], Willworkers, etc. They're not ''humans'', they're kine, canaille, Sleepers, Children of the Weaver, etc. The factions with long-established histories like the vampires and mages tend to include a generational divide in terminology, with the elder vampires and mages using traditional terms often derived from Latin, French or German, while the younger ones use a form of modern street-slang.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' series has used this trope but in the past, with dinosaurs. On the one hand, if you saw stegosauruses every day, you'd want to come up with a word for them that's easier on the tongue than the polysyllabic ones that scientists come up with. On the other, the reasoning could have had more to do with the ViewersAreMorons mindset, because kids ''always'' have a hard time remembering words like "tyrannosaurus" and "stegosaurus". Therefore, everything has incredibly simplistic names, such as "spike tail" for stegosaurus. They even have a word for the sun, "great circle" They actually refer to one species as "rainbow faces," despite the fact that they call rain "sky-water."
** Some talents on the first film explained the simplistic names as an effort at authenticity: dinosaurs 65,000,000 years ago would have no way of knowing modern terms and scientific names. The later, low-budget sequels tossed this and occasionally used the word "saurus" as if everybody knew what it meant.
** Ozzy the Egg-Stealer in the [[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTimeIITheGreatValleyAdventure second film]] averts this entirely, outright identifying himself as a ''Struthiomimus'' in his VillainSong.

* In ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'''s Universal Century and [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing After Colony]] timelines, spacesuits have been renamed "normal suits" and "astrosuits" respectively; this is justified as an attempt to avoid confusion with "[[HumongousMecha mobile suits]]".

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' series has used this trope to death, but in the past, with dinosaurs. On the one hand, if you saw stegosauruses every day, you'd want to come up with a word for them that's easier on the tongue than the polysyllabic ones that scientists come up with. On the other, the reasoning could have had more to do with the ViewersAreMorons mindset, because kids ''always'' have a hard time remembering words like "tyrannosaurus" and "stegosaurus". Therefore, everything has incredibly simplistic names, such as "spike tail" for stegosaurus. They even have a word for the sun, "great circle" They actually refer to one species as "rainbow faces," despite the fact that they call rain "sky-water."

* In ''Literature/RestaurantToAnotherWorld'', a young Tenshu and his grandfather sold an Emperor a bag of Potatoes so he could make his favorite dish: Croquettes, whenever he felt like it. [[GivingRadioToTheRomans Due to the fact that the Potato crop wasn't at all native to the fantasy world]], the ''Cobblers' Tubers'' had a major impact when they helped the Emperor to end a famine affecting his Empire. But if you ask Tenshu about it; [[ButForMeItWasTuesday he'll say it was just another Saturday.]]

** Ozzy the Egg-Stealer in the second film averts this entirely, outright identifying himself as a ''Struthiomimus'' in his VillainSong.

* ''Manga/HighSchoolOfTheDead'' [[NotUsingTheZWord refuses]] to call the zombies "zombies". Instead, they use "Them" and even went out of its way to imply they're two different things.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' series has used this trope to death, but in the past, with dinosaurs. On the one hand, if you saw stegosauruses every day, you'd want to come up with a word for them that's easier on the tongue than the polysyllabic ones that scientists come up with. On the other, the reasoning could have had more to do with the ViewersAreMorons mindset, because, of course, kids ''always'' have a hard time remembering words like "tyrannosaurus" and "stegosaurus". Therefore, everything has incredibly simplistic names, such as "spike tail" for stegosaurus. They even have a word for the sun, "great circle" They actually refer to one species as "rainbow faces," despite the fact that they call rain "sky-water."
** Some talents on the first film explained the simplistic names as an effort at authenticity: dinosaurs 65,000,000 years ago would have no way of knowing modern terms and scientific names. Of course, the later, low-budget sequels tossed this and occasionally used the word "saurus" as if everybody knew what it meant.

* 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.

* The ''Dragon's Gold'' series by Creator/PiersAnthony creates new animal names by making a {{portmanteau}} out of the names of two similar animals that exist in the real world. For instance, when the book mentions an "allidile," this of course means a creature that is similar to both an alligator and a crocodile. Or, to stick with the rabbit example, the books would probably refer to a rabbit-like creature with a word like "harebit".
* Jo Clayton's ''Literature/TheDuelOfSorceryTrilogy '' uses this—for example, ''chinin'', first mentioned in ''Moongather'', are clearly dogs (and explicitly identified as such in ''Changer's Moon''). However, there are also plenty of [[HorseOfADifferentColor beasts of different colors]], and even the occasional [[CallASmeerpARabbit smeerp identified as a rabbit]].
* Fred Saberhagen's ''Literature/EmpireOfTheEast'' trilogy and sequel series, the ''Literature/BookOfSwords'', are both guilty of this to a somewhat ridiculous extent. Granted that they are set 50,000 years in the future and [[TranslationConvention the English language has been lost]]; is it really neccesary to call horses "riding-beasts" and mules "load-beasts"? Not to mention "milk-beasts" and "wool-beasts". Yet birds are birds, dragons are dragons, and "potatoes" are still a named vegetable. Also confusingly subverted when we are introduced to the "war-beast", apparently some new type of lion or puma hybrid which can also be ridden.

* In ''Literature/TheLegacyOfHeorot'', by Creator/LarryNiven, Creator/JerryPournelle and Steven Barnes, fish-like creatures swimming in the stream of a colony planet are referred to as "samlon" (much to his chagrin, it took some folks half the book to notice it wasn't "salmon"). Of course, they turn out to be rather more than that...

* In ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', Creator/JRRTolkien refers to tobacco as "pipe-weed." This may have been to avoid the dissonance of placing New World flora in an Anglo-European FantasyCounterpartCulture. Though then again, they did have ''potatoes''. "Pipe-weed" is definitely tobacco, but, like just about everything Tolkien did, [[JustifiedTrope justified]] eventually. In the case of tobacco and potatoes in proto-Europe, the justification was that the Númenóreans, as great sailors, had sailed all over the world and brought back the plants from the proto-New World. We are left to assume that the European versions of the plants died out eventually.
** It has been suggested that it is ''pipe-weed'' rather than tobacco because Tolkien in [=LotR=] was trying to create a modern English saga, an heroic epic along the lines of Literature/{{Beowulf}}, and made a conscious decision to avoid English words of non-Germanic origins. There are many cases where Tolkien uses words which appear a little archaic, but where the modern equivalent is derived ultimately from Latin via French/Spanish, etc. Of particular note, the Westron names for the months are derived from the old Anglo-Saxon names (as opposed to our current names, which are from Latin). (This of course doesn't apply to the other languages he invented and used in the book, which are based on a wide range of sources such as Welsh, Finnish, etc. -- but the main body of the text tends to follow this rule.)

* In Creator/DianeDuane's ''Franchise/StarTrek'' ''Literature/{{Rihannsu}}'' novels have quite a few examples: e.g. 'fresher' instead of shower. Not to mention the [[ConLang "actual" Rihannsu words]]. ''The Empty Chair'', lampshades it with the sentence "like a conjurer with a ''smeerp'' up his sleeve." The [[IShouldWriteABookAboutThis introduction]] to ''The Empty Chair'' implies that TheFederation has been calling the Rihannsu [[CallASmeerpARabbit smeerps rabbits]] all along.

* Mitch Benn's ''Literature/TerraTrilogy'' practically epitomises this trope. Here he is describing a sports match: "To Fthfth's delight, Terra's gfrg skills came on in leaps and bounds (quite literally; there's a fair bit of leaping and bounding goes on in gshkth). She would convert Fthfth's zmms into zdds, smashing frkts and forcing yk yks and slotting the bdkt neatly to Fthfth so that Fthfth could ram home a victorious ghhh, to the rapturous hisses of their classmates." To be fair, it's a children's book, and children might well find that quite amusing.

** One episode had an alien trial; it turned out to be exactly like a trial on Earth, except the prosecutor, defendant, etc. had Smeerpy new titles. This was, of course, heavily {{lampshade|Hanging}}d by O'Neill and Carter.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' has a few examples, from the Eldar ('space elves')[[note]]A reference to Tolkien's work, where Eldar is the Elvish word for "Elves".[[/note]] to the Squats ('space dwarves'), though most of the common usage words are either abbreviations of normal words (lasgun for laser gun, frag warheads for fragmentation warheads) or can be explained as something different from what they sound like (lho sticks, which are described as being remarkably similar to cigarettes, but probably have a more futuristic narcotic inside). Not to mention Jokaero, the space orangutans, and gyrinxes, the space cats. The world of ''40k'' hasn't always been the grim place it is nowadays. There's also recaff for coffee, amasec for something like whiskey, tanna for chifir (Russian gulag tea), vox for radio transmitter of any kind, Auspex and Augurs for sensors and quite a couple of other "futuristic" and/or grimdark names.

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' has a couple of mildly obscure ones. Guinea pigs are known in-game as "cavies", which happens to be their original name in the language local to their country of origin, and Corinthian Bronze goes by "black bronze", likely to avoid any references to real-world locations. [[{{Unobtainium}} Adamantine]] is also basically Tolkien's {{mithril}} under another name, but that's more of a trademark issue. "Hearthperson" appears to be an odd translation of the word ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housecarl huskarl]]''.

** Common clucking barnyard fowl are referred to 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."]]
** "Human" is more or less a general category for humanoid people, which includes the Hylians (typically what you play as, but more analagous to elves than humans), Gerudo, Sheikah, and even FairFolk like the Kokiri. The round-eared mundanes we're familiar with usually either go unnamed or are lumped in as a variant of Hylians, as there's not much you can say that differentiates them from everyone else. Sometimes the games distinguish between the two, sometimes they don't.

* ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'' is full of either specially named animals or combinations of animals we'd think of as normal. Rabbats (rabbits that hang upside-down), Kotekas (hybrid chicken/crows), Icebirds (the only birds in the game that can't fly), Huskras (small dogs), Arcwhales (flying arctic sperm whales)...Not to mention the Delphinus, which is named after an ''extinct'' species of dolphins with wings.

** This even extends to some of the playable sentient races. Those humanoid cattle people that are part of the Horde are not minotaurs, they're Tauren. The new sixth race for the Alliance in ''Cataclysm'' are not werewolves, they're Worgen (named after worgs, which are basically dire wolves).

** Parodied with the trolls, who use an exaggerated form of U- and non-U-English. Where a low-class troll like Sollux would say "ablution trap", a higher-blooded troll like Equius would say "bathtub". Additionally, Alternian versions of Earth animals are named after a word relating to the animal with the suffix "-beast." For example, horses are "hoofbeasts"." [[note]](Sheep are "woolbeasts", but wool is "woolbeast material". Figure that one out.)[[/note]][[note]] Except for cats, which are just cats and [[BeamMeUpScotty not meowbeasts]]. [[/note]] Also, professions are given combat-related names, even if they have nothing to do with combat (so lawyers are "legislacerators".) Justified in this case, as [[ProudWarriorRace literally every troll is in the military or will be in the future]]. Also, some celebrities on earth have troll counterparts, who are literally called "Troll (name)".

* ''Webcomic/Sorcery101'' decided to call Chinese Sipanese even though before now one thought this was our world with werewolves and vampires and mages and demons. Pretty much every region in that comic has a different rename. UPH for the USA, Terra for England, and so on.

** In one early WesternAnimation/FoghornLeghorn 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.