"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much."
— Yogi Berra
All about the things that characters say.
See also Language Tropes and Narrator Tropes.
Tropes:
Categories:
- Accent Tropes
- Complaining Index
- Compliment Tropes
- Confession Tropes
- Excuse of an Index
- Exposition
- Externalizing Internal Monologue
- Evil Gloating
- I Am An Index
- Inane Blabbering
- Index of Apologies
- Index of Catchphrases
- Index of Goodbyes
- Insult Tropes
- Odd Last Item Index
- One-Liner
- Phone Tropes
- The Power of Language
- Promises and Vows Index
- Rebuke Tropes
- Repeat Index Index
- Rhyme Tropes
- Speeches and Monologues
- Stock Phrases
- These Tropes Love to Brag
- These Tropes Should Watch Their Language
- Threatening Tropes
- Truth and Lies
- Voice and Vocal Tropes
- What Is This Index?
- Word Power
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A
- Accidental Public Confession
- Acoustic License
- Acquaintance Denial: Pretending you don't know somebody so that you won't be judged or embarrassed.
- Acronyms Are Easy as Aybeecee: A character mishears or miswrites an acronym as if it's a normal word.
- Action Figure Speech
- Actually Pretty Impressive
- After-Action Patch-Up
- After-Action Villain Analysis
- Ahem: Throat-clearing to get someone's attention.
- Air Quotes: A gesture made by wiggling your index and middle fingers while saying a word to represent the word being sandwiched in quotations marks and to signify that the word is either being used sarcastically or that someone else used it and you don't believe it.
- All-Cheering All the Time
- Already the Case: A request or threat turns out to have already been followed by the time the speaker finishes.
- Always Introduces Themselves
- Amusing Third-Party Interjection
- Analogy Backfire
- And Then I Said
- And the Rest
- Angrish: A character becomes so overwhelmed with anger that all they can say is gibberish and/or incomplete sentences.
- Announcer Chatter
- Another Story for Another Time
- Answering Echo
- Anything but That!: A character pleads that they'll accept any punishment or torture except for this particular one.
- Apologises a Lot: A character tends to apologize repeatedly.
- Appeal to Familial Wisdom
- Appeal to Obscurity
- Applied Mathematics
- Aren't You Forgetting Someone?
- Argument of Contradictions: Two characters enter an argument that amounts mainly to yelling each other's opinion or choice at one another.
- Armor-Piercing Question
- Armor-Piercing Response
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: A list is ended with the weakest example for comic effect.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Rudely giving someone's question a deliberate wrong answer due to thinking the question was stupid.
- As the Good Book Says...: Someone quotes the Bible.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Interruption: A character sees something that causes them to suddenly shout something while they were talking, but the abruptly hollered word just happens to be what they were probably going to say or at least makes sense as part of the interrupted sentence.
- Atomic F-Bomb: Screaming the F-word.
- Audience Murmurs
B
- Backhanded Apology: An apology that deflects the blame to the person being apologized to rather than sincerely admitting fault for doing the person wrong.
- Bad News in a Good Way: Delivering bad news in a way that makes it sound like good news.
- Bad Omen Anecdote
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: It looks like they're saying that statement about one person or thing, but it turns out they meant another person or thing.
- Bathroom Search Excuse: When caught snooping, a character claims to have been looking for the bathroom.
- Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults
- Battle Cry
- Battle-Interrupting Shout
- Beam Me Up, Scotty!: An iconic catchphrase that either doesn't actually exist or is really a misquoted variant of what the character really said.
- Bearer of Bad News
- Beat Without a "But"
- The Bechdel Test: Does a work feature at least two named female characters and, if so, do they have a conversation about something other than men?
- Before I Change My Mind
- Berate and Switch
- Better Partner Assertion: A character insists to the person they love that they are the better candidate over their romantic rival.
- Bilingual Backfire
- Bilingual Dialogue
- Bilingual Rhyme
- Blah, Blah, Blah
- Blamed for Being Railroaded
- Blatant Lies: Someone makes a statement that is obviously not true.
- Blunt Metaphors Trauma: A foreign character misunderstands idioms and figures of speech or gets them wrong.
- Bold Inflation
- Bond One-Liner: Making a remark after having killed someone that makes light of their demise.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: A mundane list ends with something weird or disturbing.
- Breaking Bad News Gently
- Break Them by Talking
- Break Them With Lies
- Bring Them Around: A hero or villain switching sides needs to convince her underlings to jump ship with her.
- Broken Dialect, Impactful Speech: A character's speech pattern is flawed, yet their words hold meaningful value.
- Broken Record
- But I Digress
- Buy or Get Lost
C
- Calling Shotgun
- Calling Your Actions
- Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: A character tells everyone else that they need to go to the bathroom.
- Can't Argue with Elves: A species believes that their race is superior to all others and that therefore they are never wrong.
- Casual Danger Dialogue
- Censorship by Spelling: Spelling out a word in hopes that someone hearing you won't notice the word being spelled.
- Chain of Corrections
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Changing the topic of conversation to try and avoid discussing something you'd rather not.
- Character Catchphrase
- Character-Specific Dialogue: Certain dialogue in a game changes for certain characters.
- Chew-Out Fake-Out: A person looks like they're going to rebuke someone for doing something bad, but it then turns out that they're proud of what the person has done.
- Closed Door Rapport
- Cluster F-Bomb: Repeatedly saying "fuck".
- Code Emergency
- Collective Groan
- Combat Uninterruptus: Having a conversation during a fight.
- Comic Role Play
- Confession Deferred: Lying until either threatened or assured no harm would come from telling the truth.
- Confirm Before Reveal: A character asks a quick question about something they're about to reveal before revealing it.
- Confusing Multiple Negatives: A character uses multiple negatives, making it confusing as to what they meant to say.
- Conjunction Interruption
- Constantly Curious: A character who doesn't stop asking questions.
- Constantly Spells Their Name: An individual who has a habit of spelling their name.
- Conversational Troping
- Conversation Cut
- Converse with the Unconscious
- Corrective Lecture
- *Cough* Snark *Cough*: Coughing or pretending to cough in order to hide a rude remark or give the impression of hiding it without really intending to.
- Could Say It, But...
- Covert Distress Code: Slipping a pre-determined signal for help into a conversation.
- Covert Emergency Call
- Cowardice Callout: Someone gets called out on their cowardly behavior/conduct.
- Critical Psychoanalysis Failure
- Cryptically Unhelpful Answer
- Cryptic Conversation
- Cue Card... Pause
- Cultural Posturing
- Curse Cut Short: A character is interrupted or deliberately stops talking when they are about to swear.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: A character makes a threat that's extremely ludicrous, whether due to involving absurdly gratuitous acts of violence or being just plain weird (i.e. "I'll spank you with your own severed arm!" or "I'm gonna use a tuning fork to make your cherished childhood memories very uncomfortable!")
- Cypher Language
D
- Damned by Faint Praise: Insulting something by only praising a minor aspect.
- Dare to Be Badass
- Dead Person Conversation
- Debating Names
- Delighting in Riddles
- Demanding Their Head: A character gives verbal orders to kill somebody and return with a severed head as proof.
- Department of Redundancy Department: When a character unnecessarily repeats themselves or says something that means the same thing as what they just said.
- Derailed for Details
- Derailed Train of Thought
- Description Cut
- Description Porn
- Desperate Plea for Home: A character pushed to their limits expresses a firm desire to go home.
- Deteriorates into Gibberish
- Devastating Remark: Someone says something that leaves another person an emotional wreck
- Dialogue Reversal
- Dialogue Tree
- Did You Die?: When a character is telling the story of a dangerous event they experienced, someone else asks if the person died, even though they obviously survived if they're around to tell the story.
- Different for Girls: A Crossdresser or Gender Bender is convincing as a girl, but risks revealing himself by accidentally speaking in a distinctly masculine way.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: An attempt at saving face only makes you look even worse.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Once you find out why the person did what they did, you're not impressed with the motivation.
- Disappointed in You
- Dismissing a Compliment
- Disorganized Outline Speech
- Dispense with the Pleasantries
- Disregard That Statement
- Dissimile: This trope is like a parrot. It's comedic, and it talks about things. Except it's not an animal, it's a trope. And it talks about things in the form of a simile, instead of just mimicking random words, and... well, I guess this trope isn't that much like a parrot.
- Distinction Without a Difference: You insist that you're not X, you're just Y, but Y is essentially the same thing as X.
- Doctor, Doctor, Doctor
- Does That Sound Like Fun to You?
- Do I Really Sound Like That?: A character hears themselves speaking and is astonished at how they apparently sound.
- Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: A character mocks a being much more powerful than they are and suffers the consequences.
- Double-Edged Answer
- Double Meaning
- Double Speak
- Dramatic Deadpan
- Dramatic Ellipsis
- Dramatic Pause: A trope... about pauses.
- Dramatic Stutter
- Dropping the Bombshell
- Duck Season, Rabbit Season: Winning an Argument of Contradictions by tricking the other person into switching sides of the argument.
- Dude, Not Ironic: A character describes something as ironic when the situation isn't really an example of irony.
- Dumbass Has a Point: The dumb character actually makes a valid point.
- Dying Truce
E
- Earpiece Conversation
- Easily Overheard Conversation
- The Echoer: Someone can only speak by copying another person's words.
- Either "World Domination", or Something About Bananas
- Elective Broken Language
- Emergency Presidential Address
- Enemy Chatter
- Escalating Punchline
- Especially Zoidberg: A conversation that ends on "Even X?" "Especially X!" when you'd expect X to be an exception.
- Euphemism Buster: Someone says a euphemism, but then someone else says the non-euphemistic term.
- Everyone Knows Morse
- Everything Except Most Things
- Evil Sounds Deep: Villains have deep voices.
- Evil Sounds Raspy: Villains have raspy voices.
- Exactly What I Meant to Say
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Realizing something distressing mid-explanation.
- Exposition
- Exposition Already Covered
- Exposition Cut
F
- Facial Dialogue
- Famed in Story
- Fauxdian Slip
- Featureless Plane of Disembodied Dialogue
- Final Exchange: Replying to a person's last words.
- Finish Dialogue in Unison
- Finishing Each Other's Sentences
- Finishing the Interrupted Sentence: A character finishes their sentence after being interrupted.
- First-Name Ultimatum: Hollering a person's first name to let them know that they are in big trouble.
- Flippant Forgiveness
- Fold the Page, Fold the Space
- Freudian Slip: A character accidentally says what they were thinking about instead of what they wanted to say.
- Freudian Threat: Threatening to inflict an injury upon someone's private parts.
- Friendly Address Privileges
- Friendship Moment: A sudden yet heartwarming affirmation of close friendship between two characters.
- From the Latin "Intro Ducere"
- Full-Name Ultimatum: Calling someone by their full name to let them know that they are in big trouble.
- Funny Photo Phrase: Someone says, or is asked to say, a silly phrase in place of "Cheese" when having their photo taken.
- Fun with Homophones: Confusion between two different words that sound the same.
G
- Gag Echo
- Gagging on Your Words
- Geeky Turn-On
- Gender-Concealing Writing
- Gender-Inclusive Writing
- Gentleman Snarker
- Get It Over With
- The Ghost: A character who is mentioned by others in dialogue, but never makes a physical appearance.
- Gibbering Genius
- Give Me a Reason: Someone eagerly looks for an excuse to inflict violence upon someone.
- Good Night, Sweet Prince
- Grilling the Newbie
- The Growing Up Speech: Someone, usually a Cool Old Guy, gives a youth a speech about what it means to grow up.
H
- Half-Baked Niceness: Someone's compliment is of poor quality in some way.
- Hammy Herald
- Hannibal Lecture
- Head Bob
- Heartfelt Apology: Offering a sincere apology to someone who gladly accepts it.
- He Didn't Make It: "Not making it" is an euphemism for death.
- Heroism Motive Speech
- Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: If a character hesitates before answering, it's a dead giveaway that they are lying.
- Hey, That's My Line!
- Hey, You!
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier
- Hit You So Hard, Your X Will Feel It!
- Holding the Floor
- Hostage-Handler Huddle
- How Did You Know? I Didn't
- Hurricane of Aphorisms
- Hurricane of Euphemisms: A Long List of synonyms.
- Hyperaffixation: Hyper-utilizing a hyper-specific prefix or suffix by hyper-attaching it to hyper-words.
- Hypothetical Fight Debate: A debate on who would win if two people or characters got into a fight.
I
- I Can't Believe I'm Saying This
- If I Wanted You Dead...
- If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...
- I Gave My Word
- Ignore the Disability: Character unsuccessfully tries to remind themselves not to point out another character's disability or deformity.
- Ignoring by Singing: A character covers their ears and sings to try and ignore a statement they don't like or don't want to hear.
- I Have Nothing to Say to That
- I Have This Friend: A character asks for advice on how to deal with their problem, but claims that it's a friend of theirs who has the problem to avoid embarrassing themselves.
- I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That
- I'll Take Two Beers Too
- I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Someone says that they're "an X, not a Y".
- I'm Not Doing That Again
- Implied Death Threat: Making an indirect threat to kill someone.
- I'm Thinking It Over!
- Inevitability Clarification: Stressing that it's not a matter of if an event will happen, but when.
- Inflationary Dialogue
- Infodump: Introducing the new characters as soon as they appear.
- Inner Monologue Conversation
- Innocent Awkward Question: A child accidentally shocks or embarrasses adults with a question.
- Instantly Proven Wrong
- Instant Seduction
- Instructional Dialogue
- Insult Friendly Fire: Insult one person with an insult that unintentionally offends another person you didn't mean to insult because it also applies to them.
- Insult Misfire: A person gets insulted but misinterprets who the insult is aimed at.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: A character can only speak gibberish, but everyone else understands them perfectly.
- Intercom Villainy: A villain uses a remote communication system to talk to the hero.
- ...In That Order
- Ironic Echo
- I Say What I Say
- Is the Answer to This Question "Yes"?: Responding to a yes or no question by asking another yes or no question that the other person should figure out has the same answer.
- I Take Offense to That Last One: A character has several insults thrown at them, but only gets offended or the most upset by the last and/or weakest of the insults.
- It Tastes Like Feet: Remarking that food you just ate tastes awful by claiming it tastes like something gross.
- I "Uh" You, Too
- I Would Say If I Could Say: A character remarks that they'd say a specific phrase were it not for one detail preventing the phrase from making any sense if they'd say it.
J
K
L
- Lame Comeback: Someone insults you and you try to insult them back, but the insult you give stinks.
- Lame Rhyme Dodge: Someone tries to cover up an insult by claiming to have said something that rhymes with the insult.
- Lampshade Hanging: The characters call attention to an illogical/unexpected trope.
- Language Fluency Denial
- Large-Ham Announcer
- Large Ham Radio
- Last Chance to Quit
- Last Request
- Last-Second Word Swap: Changing the last word you were going to say at the last minute.
- Layman's Terms: Explaining verbose vernacular in terms that less intelligent people will understand. In English, that means dumbing down big words so we know what the brainiac is talking about.
- Laziness Callout
- Let's Mock the Monsters
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Characters make a vow that they'll never talk about this incident ever again.
- Lies to Children: Someone lies to children.
- "Life Is Awesome" Speech: Someone makes a speech about the many joys of actually living.
- Life-Saving Encouragement
- Like a God to Me
- Listing the Forms of Degenerates
- Literally Laughable Question
- Little Professor Dialog: A child speaks with a precociously expansive vocabulary.
- Loves Secrecy
- Ludicrous Precision
- Lying to the Perp
M
- Ma'am Shock: A woman reacts badly to being called "ma'am".
- Made Myself Sad
- Mad Libs Dialogue
- Madness Mantra: A repeatedly spoken phrase that indicates insanity.
- Malicious Slander
- Mamet Speak
- Mathematician's Answer: An answer to a question that is technically correct, but doesn't really answer the question.
- Meaningful Echo
- Meaningful Look
- Meaningless Meaningful Words
- Melodramatic Pause
- Mid-Sentence Mind Warp: A character undergoes a dramatic mental change while speaking, right in the middle of a sentence, usually resulting in a non-sequitur.
- Mirror Monologue: Someone talks to themselves while looking in the mirror.
- Mistaken Confession
- Motive Misidentification
- Motive Rant: A character goes into a rant on why they're doing what they're doing.
- Mouthful of Pi: A brainy character can recite pi to many places.
- Mouthing the Profanity: Mouthing a swear word instead of actually saying it.
- Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: The dub versions of a work have one actor reprise their role in the different languages.
- Multiple Persuasion Modes
- Multitasked Conversation
- Musicalis Interruptus: A lyrical song is interrupted.
- My Defense Need Not Protect Me Forever
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Excluding someone from a group after the impression is given that they were included in the group mentioned earlier.
- My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: A character attempts to speak a foreign language, but either angers someone by unintentionally saying an insulting phrase or embarrasses themselves by unknowingly saying a humiliating or nonsensical phrase.
N
- The Name Is Bond, James Bond: A character introduces themselves by saying their surname and then their full name.
- Narration Echo
- Never Say That Again
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: A character will never say anything negative about the deceased.
- Newspeak
- Nobody's That Dumb: A dumb character reveals themselves to be aware of their stupidity and makes it clear that even they have limits to how idiotic they can be.
- No-Dialogue Episode: An episode where none of the characters talk.
- NO INDOOR VOICE: Character has a tendency to shout whenever they talk.
- Noisy Shut-Up
- "No" Means "Yes"
- "No More Holding Back" Speech
- Non-Answer
- Non Sequitur Distraction
- Noodle Implements: Character claims to have done something or mentions an intent to do something using tools with unspecified purposes.
- Noodle Incident: Characters mention an unseen past event and are extremely vague about it.
- No One Else Is That Dumb: Proving a character is your dumb friend by having them confirm their idiocy.
- Not Actually the Ultimate Question
- Not Hyperbole: What seems like a figure of speech isn't.
- "Not How I'm Dying" Declaration: A character states that there is no way they're going to die to a proposed threat, real or hypothetical.
- Not in Front of the Kid!: No one swears in front of children.
- Not Listening to Me, Are You?
- Not so Dire
- No, You
- No, You Go First
O
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging
- Obviously Not Fine: A character says that they're okay when it's quite plain that they're not.
- Oblivious Mockery
- Oh God, with the Verbing!
- Oh, No... Not Again!
- Oh, Wait!
- Once More, with Volume!: Thinking an incredulous "what?" means they didn't hear you, so you repeat it louder.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations
- One Scene, Two Monologues
- One-Tract Mind
- One-Word Vocabulary
- On Second Thought
- On Three: One... two... three!
- Ordered Apology
- Or My Name Isn't...: A character says that "X will happen or my name isn't Y!".
- ...Or So I Heard
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: A character eavesdrops on a conversation and gets the wrong idea of what's going on due to missing the proper context.
- Outside/Inside Slur
P
- Parenthetical Swearing: The character doesn't swear, but the way they phrase their statements makes it easy to imagine that they are cussing.
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: Using made-up words.
- Perplexing Plurals
- The Perry Mason Method
- Personalized Pledge: "I swear upon [something personal]."
- Persuasion Minigame
- Picked Flowers Are Dead
- Playing the Victim Card: The guilty party tries to make it look like they are the victim.
- Plato Is a Moron
- Pokémon Speak: Character can only say their own name.
- Poor Communication Kills: Failure to explain your intentions clearly will have dire consequences.
- Poorly Timed Confession
- [Popular Saying], But...
- Porky Pig Pronunciation: Character struggles to pronounce a word before settling on using a synonym.
- Pose of Silence: Leaning closely or obscuring your mouth renders you inaudible to everyone else.
- Precision F-Strike: In a work that otherwise doesn't have profanity, or features a character who doesn't normally use profanity, profanity is unexpectedly used.
- Preemptive "Shut Up": Telling someone to shut up when they haven't even said anything.
- Profound by Pop Song
- Profuse Thanking: Characters who can't seem to stop thanking their benefactors.
- The Promise
- Pronouncing My Name for You: A character tells someone how to say their name.
- Proverbial Wisdom
- Publicly Discussing the Secret
- Purple Prose: Overly flowery writing.
Q
- Quiet Cry for Help
- Quote Mine
- Quote-to-Quote Combat
- Quoting Myself: To quote the writer of this sentence, "It's a trope about quoting oneself."
R
- Race-Name Basis: Calling someone by their race or species.
- Radio Voice
- Rage Against the Mentor
- Rapid-Fire Interrupting
- Rapid-Fire Name Guessing
- A Rare Sentence
- Rationalizing the Overkill: Rationalizing why retaliation was made with more extremes than the slight deserved.
- Reading the Stage Directions Out Loud: Someone reads from a script and misinterprets stage directions as lines.
- Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Dialogue in fiction is very clear-cut, unlike in real life.
- "The Reason I Suck" Speech
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Someone tears into someone else by going on a rant listing the other person's flaws.
- Recorded Spliced Conversation
- Remember That You Trust Me
- Repeated Cue, Tardy Response
- Repeated for Emphasis
- Repeat It Until You Believe It: Repeating a statement several times indicates the speaker is trying to convince themself of the statement.
- Repeat to Confirm
- Repeat What You Just Said
- Request for Privacy
- Reunion Vow
- Revenge Is Not Justice
- Rhetorical Question Blunder: Someone answers a rhetorical question due to not knowing that the other person wasn't expecting an answer.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Character speaks in rhyme.
- Rhyming List
- Ridiculous Counter-Request
- Rousing Speech
S
- Said Bookism: Authors say anything but "said" when describing a character's dialogue.
- Sarcastic Confession
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: A character says a sound effect.
- Saying Too Much
- Say My Name: A character yells out another one's name.
- "Say My Name" Trailer: The main character's name is repeated many times by other people in the trailer.
- Say Par Ate Ted Words Gag: See ming lea ran dumb words or sill uh bulls sound diff fur rent when come bind.note
- Scheherezade Gambit
- Screw You, Elves!: The high-and-mighty species who believe themselves to be better than everyone else gets told by a member of one of the so-called "lesser species" where they can shove their arrogance.
- Screw Your Ultimatum!
- Seamless Spontaneous Lie
- Secret Identity Vocal Shift
- Secret Message Wink: Winking to secretly get a message across.
- Seinfeldian Conversation
- Sentence Left Hanging: A character leaves a sentence incomplete to add tension to a scene.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Big words.
- 7-Minute Lull
- Shall I Repeat That?
- Shamed by a Mob
- Shaming the Mob
- Shaped Like Itself: Describing something as being like itself (e.g. a house-shaped house).
- Shutting Up Now
- Shut Up, Kirk!
- "Shut Up" Kiss: Kissing someone to stop them from talking.
- Sidetracked by the Analogy: A simile or metaphor is told, but someone gets distracted by something in the phrase's literal meaning.
- Sigh of Love
- Signature Line
- Silence Is Golden
- Silent Conversation
- Silent Whisper
- Simple Solution Won't Work: One character suggests a simple solution to a problem, and another character tells them why it won't work.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: Character has a tendency to swear.
- Sit Rep
- Smurfing: A character uses the same word to substitute every other word.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat
- Snub by Omission
- So Crazy, It Must Be True
- Something Only They Would Say
- Sommelier Speak
- So Proud of You
- Sorrowful Stutter
- Speak Ill of the Dead: Character has no qualms with saying negative things about the deceased.
- Speaking Like Totally Teen
- Speaking Simlish: Characters' dialogue consists almost entirely of gibberish.
- Speak in Unison
- Speaks in Shout-Outs
- Speech-Bubble Censoring: In comics, speech bubbles are used to cover up nudity.
- Speech-Centric Work
- Speech Impediment
- Spy Speak
- Stage Whisper: A "whisper" that's loud enough for the audience to hear.
- Start My Own
- Stealth Insult: Insulting someone in a way that you intend them not to understand that they are being dissed.
- Stereo Fibbing
- Stock Quotes
- Stop Copying Me
- Stop Saying That!
- Strange-Syntax Speaker
- Stupid Question Bait
- Such a Phony: Character talks crap about another but speaks nicely to them when they're around.
- Suddenly Shouting: Character abruptly raises their voice when speaking.
- The Summation
- Surrogate Soliloquy
- Survival Mantra
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: This definitely isn't a trope about a character denying something in terms specific enough to make it clear that they're lying.
- Suspiciously Specific Tense
- Sustained Misunderstanding
- Switch to English
T
- Taking the Fight Outside
- Talk About the Weather: It's so nice out today.
- Talking in Your Dreams
- Talking through Technique
- Talking to Plants
- Talking to the Dead
- Talking with Signs
- Talking Your Way Out
- Talks Like a Simile
- Taunting the Transformed: A character reacts to the sight of a transformation with mockery, usually verbal.
- Teasing from Behind the Language Barrier
- Technical Euphemism: Technical vocab used euphemistically.
- Telegraph Gag STOP
- Tell Him I'm Not Speaking to Him
- Tell Me About My Father
- Tempting Fate: Remarking that you're sure nothing bad will happen, only for the bad thing to happen right after you're done talking.
- Terms of Endangerment
- Terse Talker
- Textplosion: A comics' panels are suddenly filled with (dialogue) text before reverting to illustrations.
- Thank Your Prey
- That Came Out Wrong: Character realizes to their mortification that they just said something that sounds unintentionally sleazy.
- That Cloud Looks Like...: Comparing the shape of clouds to other things.
- That Liar Lies: A person is reprimanded for or accused of lying.
- That Makes Me Feel Angry: Character expresses emotions by stating how they feel.
- That Mysterious Thing
- That Was Not a Dream: Character talks about a dream they had and is then told that they weren't dreaming and what they described actually happened.
- That Was Objectionable: In court, the lawyer can refute anything by hollering "Objection" or "I object".
- Thinking Out Loud: Should I write a description for this trope? The name is pretty obvious, but it might be fun to make the description self-demonstrating. I think I'll write one.
- Think of the Censors!
- This Explains So Much: A stupid or eccentric character reveals a detail about themselves that causes another character to remark that this may explain why the other person is the way they are.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Emphasising a declaration by ending it with "bitch".
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Confusion on the proper tense to use when describing the actions of time travelers, as those done in the past will technically have already happened and those done in the future haven't happened yet.
- Timmy in a Well
- Tom Swifty: A punny adverb sprung from the line of dialogue it tags.
- "Too Young to Die" Lamentation
- Trial Balloon Question
- Trick Dialogue
- The Triple
- Trouble Entendre
- Truth-Telling Session
- Trust Password
- Twisting the Words
- Twisted Echo Cut
- T-Word Euphemism: Referring to a word as the (first letter of word)-word to avoid actually saying the word.
- Two Scenes, One Dialogue
U
- Unnecessary Time Precision: Doing complicated time calculations just to say that the date requested is very recent.
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: The winner is arrogant enough to mock the other competitors for losing.
- Unusual Euphemism: Saying bizarre words and phrases in lieu of profanity.
V
- Verbal Backspace: Someone corrects themself mid-sentence.
- A Visit from Aunt Flo(w): Humor based on euphemistic references to menstruation.
- Voiceover Letter: A character reads a letter and we hear a voiceover of the letter being read aloud by whoever wrote the letter.
W
- Walk-In Chime-In
- Wall of Blather
- Wasn't That Fun?: A character (sincerely or not) claims they want to do something dangerous again.
- Waxing Lyrical: Mentioning the lyrics of a song.
- Weapons-Grade Vocabulary
- Weird Aside
- Weirder Than Usual
- Welcome to Corneria: The non-player characters of a video game have limited dialogue.
- Wham Line: One line of dialogue changes everything.
- What's a Henway?: Tricking someone into asking what a nonsense word is, leading to a pun (e.g. "Have you seen my dogway?" "What's a dogway?" "Depends on the breed.")
- What the Hell, Hero?: The hero is called out by others for doing something not very heroic.
- Where Do You Think You Are?
- While You Were in Diapers: A character brags about their experience and seniority by claiming to have been at the top of their game when their younger colleagues were only infants.
- Whispered Threat
- Whoopi Epiphany Speech
- Who's on First?: Two words are confused (for instance, a character named Watt causing confusion when asked, "What's your name?").
- Who Will Bell the Cat?
- Who Would Be Stupid Enough?
- Why Are We Whispering?
- Witch with a Capital "B": Insulting a woman by calling her a "witch" instead of a certain word that rhymes.
- Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: Not realizing that the response given to your request or question was the one you wanted.
- Word Association Test
- Worrisome "Mostly-ish"
- Worse with Context
- Worth It
- Would Rather Suffer: Underscoring your distaste for something by claiming you'd rather do something very unpleasant.
- Wrong-Name Outburst
- Wrote the Book
Y
- "Yes"/"No" Answer Interpretation: A character asks or chooses to interpret whether another character's reply or action is a "yes" or a "no".
- Yiddish as a Second Language: A Jewish character speaks Yiddish as well as the work's primary language.
- You Answered Your Own Question
- You Are Not Alone
- You Can Talk?
- You Can Turn Back
- "You!" Exclamation: "You!"
- You Have to Believe Me!: A character makes a claim that they know sounds odd and desperately begs to be believed.
- You Know Who Said That?
- You're Nothing Without Your Phlebotinum
- "You!" Squared
- You Talk Too Much!
- "You Used to Be Better" Speech
- You Will Be Spared
