Basic Trope: An ordinary item/creature is called by a fictional name.
- Straight: A rabbit is called a smeerp.
- Exaggerated:
- Every object that exists in reality is called by a different made up name. Clocks are called "ring-toks", for example.
- A rabbit is called a substered perhympiedexcitypolinkhausive galition.
- Downplayed: The rabbit has a few differences from ordinary rabbits (for instance, it has long fangs), but wouldn't "fanged rabbit" be a more appropriate name for it than "smeerp"?
- Justified:
- The work takes place in a world with alternate naming conventions for items.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language
- Sylvilagus
Smeerpus is a species of rabbit discovered by Dr. Smeerp. - The gathering rolls no moss while the smeerp is loafened into the opening.translation
- Bobby, the one-year-old P.O.V. Character, doesn't know the word for ducks (yet), so he calls them "quackquacks".
- Inverted: Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit"
- Subverted: The "smeerp" is revealed to have good reason for being considered different from rabbits.
- Double Subverted: This "reason" is something such as having more than one fur color, having lop ears, or any other trait that regular rabbits could just as well have.
- Parodied:
- Everyone keeps calling the rabbit "Not a Rabbit".
- The word for rabbit is so long or ridiculous sounding that Hilarity Ensues whenever the characters talk about one.
- Zig-Zagged: Sometimes they call the creature a rabbit, and sometimes they call it a smeerp.
- Averted: Everyone just calls it a rabbit.
- Enforced: "We want the setting to be almost exactly like Earth, with a few differences. So stick some regular Earth objects and animals on there, but give them different names."
- Lampshaded: "Isn't that just a rabbit?"
- Invoked: Bob tells a taxonomer to start calling rabbits "smeerps".
- Exploited: Bob uses an item's Non-Indicative Name to make it sound more dangerous than it really is so he can intimidate an enemy.
- Defied: "What the hell is a smeerp? That's a rabbit, and we're calling it a rabbit."
- Discussed: "I've heard they have creatures on Earth exactly like smeerps, but they call them a different name."
- Conversed: "I can understand calling a cat a meow, but a rabbit a smeerp? Is that even the sound rabbits make?!"
Back to Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp"
