 Quotes •  Headscratchers •  Playing With • Useful Notes •  Analysis •  Image Links •  Haiku • Laconic
|
|---|
Believe it or not, Trope Namers pop up in that thing you call "the real world," too. Technically Real Life names every trope, ever.
- Acquired Situational Narcissism
- All Bikers Are Hells Angels
- Artificial Limbs
- Asexuality
- Battle Cry
- Bulletproof Vest
- Can Not Tell a Lie (from a myth about George Washington)
- Cargo Cult (natives conducting rituals to lure back the World War Two supply planes; famous for Richard Feynman's lecture on "Cargo Cult Science")
- Cool and Unusual Punishment (referencing the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution)
- Dewey Defeats Truman
- Dress Code
- Drinking the Kool Aid (kinda; the substance used in the infamous Jonestown incident was actually Flavr-Aid)
- The Empire (the term which lent this trope its name originated in the Roman Empire - or rather the Republic, if you wanted to get really specific)
- Enforced Cold War
- Fighting Irish (University of Notre Dame)
- Food Fight
- Force Feeding
- Groin Attack
- Knight Templar (The Knights Templar)
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics (attributed to Benjamin Disraeli and Mark Twain)
- Lima Syndrome
- Logic Bomb
- Missing White Woman Syndrome
- Mystery Meat
- Nightmare Dreams
- No FEMA Response (after the United States' Federal Emergency Management Agency, charged with helping citizens clean up after natural disasters strike)
- No OSHA Compliance (after the United States' Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with workplace safety and the like)
- No True Scotsman
- One Riot, One Ranger (motto of the Texas Rangers)
- Pandering to the Base
- Pirate Booty
- The Plague
- Plausible Deniability
- Police Brutality
- Police Lineup
- The Power of Cheese
- Prison Rape
- The Republic (from the Latin res publica)
- Recursive Acronym
- The Scourge of God
- Snipe Hunt
- Stockholm Syndrome
- Swiss Army Appendage
- Swiss Army Weapon (after the ubiquitous Swiss Army knives)
- This Is Your Brain on Evil (from the "This Is Your Brain on Drugs" Public Service Announcement)
- Uncanny Valley
- Uncle Sam Wants You
- Unnecessary Roughness (an actual term used by NFL referees)
- Vaudeville Hook
- Vicious Cycle
- Wardrobe Malfunction (from the infamous Super Bowl XXXVIII performance by Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake)
- The War to End All Wars (World War One)
- Weapon of Mass Destruction (used to refer to any weapon of unknown nature that is very powerful)
Individuals
- The Barnum (P. T. Barnum)
- Bowdlerise (Thomas Bowdler)
- The Caligula
- Casanova
- Charles Atlas Superpower
- The Chris Carter Effect
- Cincinnatus
- Dan Browned
- The Danza (Tony Danza)
- E=MC Hammer (cross-reference to MC Hammer and Albert Einstein's theories of relativity)
- Finagle's Law
- Garfunkel (Art Garfunkel, nominally of the band Simon and Garfunkel)
- Germans Love David Hasselhoff
- Godiva Hair
- Jackie Robinson Story
- Mata Hari
- Mock Cousteau (Jacques Cousteau)
- More Teeth Than the Osmond Family
- The Munchausen (Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, a.k.a. Baron Münchhausen)
- The Napoleon
- Patrick Stewart Speech
- The Peter Principle (coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter)
- The Quisling (Vidkun Quisling)
- Red Baron
- Sedgwick Speech (John Sedgwick)
- Sturgeon's Law
- Tom Hanks Syndrome
- Word of Dante
- Archimedes
- Anton Chekhov
- Chekhov's Gun and all of its punny subtropes
- Francis P. Church
- Winston Churchill
- The Eternal Churchill
- Iron Curtain (although he apparently wasn't the first to use this phrase, he was certainly the most notable)
- A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside An Enigma
- Written by the Winners
- Firmin Didot
- Sigmund Freud
- Whoopi Goldberg
- Wayne Gretzky
- Butch Hartman
- Patrick Henry
- Adolf Hitler (see also: Godwin's Law)
- Harry Houdini
- Chief Joseph
- Joan of Arc
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
- Carl Macek
- Abraham Maslow
- William Topaz McGonagall
- (both named for the "Mohs scale of mineral hardness")
- Marilyn Monroe
- Marilyn Maneuver (you know the one!)
- Grigori Rasputin
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Andy Serkis
- J. Michael Straczynski
- Traveling At the Speed of Plot
- Wham! Episode (and derived from that, Wham! Line)
- Mike Tyson
- The Tyson Zone (coined by sports writer Bill Simmons)
- Ted Woolsey
Organizations
- 7-Eleven
- Gigantic Gulp (taken from its "Big Gulp" line of beverage holders)
- Adobe
- Gaussian Girl (from a Photoshop feature)
- We Will Not Use Photoshop in the Future
- Apple Inc.
- Everyone Owns a Mac
- Everything Is an iPod In The Future
- IProduct
- iSophagus (Cross-reference to a Sluggy Freelance strip)
- Coca-Cola Company
- ESRB
- Rated "M" for Manly (cross-reference to the video "Counter-Strike For Kids")
- Rated "M" for Money
- Ford Motor Company
- Fortune Magazine
- Hasbro
- Hershey's Food Company
- Get the Sensation (from a commercial for York Peppermint Patties)
- id Software
- Kellogg's
- Follow Your Nose (catch phrase of Froot Loops mascot Toucan Sam)
- LEGO Group
- McDonald's
- Egg McGuffin (a play on their Egg McMuffin)
- Motion Picture Association of America
- Ronseal
- Texas Instruments
- Time Warner Corporation
- Alphabet News Network (for CNN)
- Verizon
Places