Huh. I always assumed Have a Gay Old Time was an Audience Reaction, but now I see it's not.
It really should be either audience reaction, or in-universe examples only. "Language evolves over time, sometimes making everyday words into something mature or rude" isn't a trope, just a fact.
Seems like it would qualify more for the Trivia tab. That's where we put Science Marches On, which is similarly about the passage of time changing how stuff in the story comes off.
That would open up a can of worms because we have a number of similar "regular" tropes about content being judged differently in hindsight: Time Marches On, Dated History, Failed Future Forecast, Zeerust, I Want My Jet Pack, etc.
Captain of USS Bajor
Yeah, I think this should be only for In-Universe acknowledgements of the trope.
Most examples I've seen on the trope page are unintentional, eg. gay being used for happy in a work that came out decades ago. This does happen, and there are examples where this is acknowledged in-universe (eg. Mr Burns asking Smithers if he'll do something gay, as in happy), or otherwise intentional (Bowling For Soup's "I'm Gay"), but I don't know what the point is of listing examples for narrative tropes that weren't intentional. Given that the trope description talks about outdated slang rather than how it's used in a work, could this need TRS?
Edited by RainbowPumpqueen on Mar 11th 2024 at 7:39:40 PM
Sandbox help wanted.