Alternate Terminology: Landships, Farseers, and Localnets

[Ciclavex]

I remember a few years ago it being pointed out that the only country which didn't have that most American symbol of American global dominance, Coca-Cola, was...America. (Because the HFCS version is so different, as you say).

Wasn't there also something about there being a version of Coke suitable for a Jewish festival due to dietary laws (I forget the details) which was basically Mexican Coke and non-Jewish Americans were buying it because it's better than the HFCS version?

Many (largely Orthodox) Ashkenazi traditions consider corn syrup to be a form of leavening, and therefore banned for consumption during Passover. Thus, “Passover Coke” and its relations.

 

[Redolegna]

Char d'assaut could be translated as assault car, but to me it's more of an 'assault chariot'. Which might be more appropriate terminology for an APC, if we consider how the Egyptians, Greeks or Britons used chariots to fight. Ooooooo! Armored dragoons could be it, too. I think somebody might have mentioned here or elsewhere that cataphracts would be a nice comeback.

Never been fond of tank, or landship, as names. They lack oooomph and they just don't do justice to what they're supposed to describe.

Maybe a brand of fridge? Do we all take the milk out of the smeg in another TL? My thoughts seem to be mainly linked to the kitchen. Washing machines, tumble dryers and microwaves are other potential things for names. Perhaps cameras?

As it happens, yes, there is such a case, the Frigidaire. The generic word in French is "réfrigérateur", but nobody used that. Nowadays that the brand has disappeared, we don't use the full name, but we still say "frigo" for short. There's a whole range of them described on this page. My personal favourite is Jacuzzi. I can guarantee nobody in France has ever used a parallel to hot tub.

 

[Thande]

Char d'assaut could be translated as assault car, but to me it's more of an 'assault chariot'. Which might be more appropriate terminology for an APC, if we consider how the Egyptians, Greeks or Britons used chariots to fight. Ooooooo! Armored dragoons could be it, too. I think somebody might have mentioned here or elsewhere that cataphracts would be a nice comeback.

See I thought it was as in chariot, but then when I tried looking up evidence of this online I couldn't find anything.

As it happens, yes, there is such a case, the Frigidaire. The generic word in French is "réfrigérateur", but nobody used that. Nowadays that the brand has disappeared, we don't use the full name, but we still say "frigo" for short. There's a whole range of them described on this page. My personal favourite is Jacuzzi. I can guarantee nobody in France has ever used a parallel to hot tub.

Ah, I always wondered how they derived frigo from réfrigérateur. We did learn the slang term in GCSE French. Le chat est dans le frigo. (And yes I did have to google the genders of both words).

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Never been fond of tank, or landship, as names. They lack oooomph and they just don't do justice to what they're supposed to describe.

Panzerkampfwagen chills the blood much more effectively.

I was planning on using alternate names for well known things (tanks, jet engines etc) - but it got too confusing for the reader - the last thing you want to refer to is a glossary.

Chemical elements are the only thing that stayed. Elements 93, 94 and 95 will all have different names.

 

[Thande]

I was planning on using alternate names for well known things (tanks, jet engines etc) - but it got too confusing for the reader - the last thing you want to refer to is a glossary.

Depends how well it's written, really. It is a challenge to avoid it turning into 'wait, what was that again?' The trick is not to overload it. For example if if in this scene a character needs to call someone on a *phone to send a courier over on a *motorbike, then you only need to introduce a name for one of those things and the scene can still make sense, because we wouldn't necessarily use the nouns in a realistic conversation. In this case, if the narrative 'camera' is on the character making the call, then it makes sense to use the alternate term for phone, because the reader can see the act being described and work out that this means phone without having it spelled out to them, but not to use the term for motorbike because that's off-camera and would be better reserved for a later scene.

 

[Tabac Iberez]

Panzerkampfwagen chills the blood much more effectively.

I was planning on using alternate names for well known things (tanks, jet engines etc) - but it got too confusing for the reader - the last thing you want to refer to is a glossary.

Having run into this problem multiple times, the only adaquete solution I know is to just bull through and start slapping adjectives in to fill out the mental thonk.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Having run into this problem multiple times, the only adaquete solution I know is to just bull through and start slapping adjectives in to fill out the mental thonk.

It was mainly to differentiate between uptimers and downtimers in an ISOT - not to OTL but a parallel universe. I just ended up confusing myself.