...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Meaningless Meaningful Words
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Did that sound painful and confusing to you? Some people think that throwing around "meaningful" words such as "eternal", "chronicle", "destiny" and so on makes language sound more important, more imposing, more... something. It's the same with uncalled-for synonyms, words such as "utilize" in place of "use", "dialogue" as a verb, "said" (as in, "aforementioned") instead of "the", and so on, especially if they're used incorrectly. This can be used in both character dialogue and narration. Of course, big words and metaphors can be used correctly and they can even be built into a very good writing style but that's not what this trope is about. This trope refers to passages that use bad metaphors and so many "meaningful" words that it reduces them to Narm. At that point, it's bad and meaningless. Unfortunately, some writers just haven't gotten it yet. When this type of writing leaves the minds of melodramatic teenagers and enters mainstream TV and books, we all suffer. When it enters news media and politics, we're really in trouble. Truth in Television, and known to The Other Wiki under the name of "Thought-terminating cliche." On the powerless end of the Power of Language scale. Not to be confused with Koan, which is when the expression actually means something, or Ice-Cream Koan, which is when such phrases are meant to be meaningless. Contemplate Our Navels, Mind Screw, and Vagueness Is Coming frequently contain aspects of this and it's a requirement for Fauxlosophic Narration. A common staple of Purple Prose, Word Salad Philosophy, and Mixed Metaphor. Concepts Are Cheap is the worst outcome. Also a common signifier of a Know-Nothing Know-It-All or a person with Delusions of Eloquence, who is likely to say these sorts of things in an attempt to sound profound, and is also likely to perceive examples of this from others to be similarly profound. For naming conventions that rely on this trope, see Word Salad Title. Compare also Word-Salad Horror. Before adding an example, please remember that it has to confuse more people than just you. Just because you don't get it doesn't mean others don't. A vague meaning doesn't make it an example of this trope. |
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Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): The ancient mantra of the Knuckles Clan became this in the comic: "The servers are the seven chaos. Chaos is power, enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the chaos". It came from the games, where it actually made sense, as it was saying (albeit in a somewhat cryptic way, mainly due to the wording chosen by the translatorsnote a more direct translation of the third sentence would be "The one who masters that also controls the chaos") that the Chaos Emeralds can transform wishes into power, so one needs have control over their will and emotions to be able to master their powers. But in the Archie Sonic universe, Chaos Emeralds were far more numerous and disposable and had never been shown to react to will or emotions. The writers seemed to realize this (or perhaps they just didn't know the actual meaning...), as they tried to Hand Wave it by taking the first sentence a tad bit too literally and saying that it referred to seven Chao who were called the Seven Servers and had been transformed into seven Super Emeralds long ago. Too bad that this still left most of the mantra unexplained and only resulted in it becoming even more confusing and nonsensical... | |
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The page image comes from Hiimdaisy, which lampoons Metal Gear's love for this trope. Note that the dialogue used for the comic is actual game dialogue. | |
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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey parodies this twice, first when they propose to their girlfriends, then by having the title characters saying the lyrics to "Every Rose Has its Thorn", which could easily qualify as this trope by itself, when asked "What is the meaning of life?". It's a Callback to a scene from the original Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, where Ted blows Socrates out of his mind by quoting "Dust in the Wind". | |
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In Bleach, the incantations of Kid� spells make no sense at all by common standards. For instance: "Ye Lord! Mask of blood and flesh, flutter of wings, he who bears the name of man! Inferno and Pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hado number 31, Red Flame Cannon!" But that's fair enough as they are magical incantations and aren't supposed to convey any actual meaning. At least not to the audience; treatment of some non-Kido spells implies that somebody who actually had read the full works quoted in fragment by those incantations and who'd been trained in the associated meditative practices would have context for them, but the words themselves still would only have evocative rather than literal meaning. (Similar to how many speakers of non-tonal languages with no musical training can still remember the rough melody of song passages by remembering their lyrics despite there being no connection between the two that would let somebody unfamiliar with the song guess one from the other.) | |
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In Kingdom Hearts II, a villain tells you that "if light and darkness are eternal, then surely we Nobodies are the same. Eternal!" Ouch. It wasn't so much what was said, but the delivery, and especially the way the word "eternal" was emphasized and drawn out, as if it somehow had special meaning. Of course the heroes tell him to shut up and take his beating. | |
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In Dungeons & Dragons (1983), when Eric has been made Dungeon Master, his friends receive this nugget of esoteric wisdom: "You will find it, unless it finds you first. It is far off, though in truth it is very near" — to which the other kids reply, "Boooo!" | |
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Cheers: At one point a city councilman looking for re-election enters the bar, hoping to drum up support. An irate Frasier tries to point out he's just spouting off meaningless gabble no matter what he's asked, but since Frasier is the smartest person in Cheers, he's got no luck. | |
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The Simpsons: A Halloween episode where aliens Kang and Kodos disguise themselves as presidential candidates Bill Clinton and Bob Dole parodies the use of this in election speeches. Another example is from the executive session discussing the eponymous new character in The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show: |
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Happens a couple times in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: When it's revealed that Sixth Rangers Bobbi and Mack have a secret agenda of their own, they're conflicted over whether or not to include Bobbi's on-and-off lover Hunter in the loop, since she didn't want to keep secrets from him. Mack convinces her to leave Hunter out for the time being, saying something along the lines of "We have to do what we have to do; maybe in the next world we can all be friends again," making their plans sound absolutely nefarious. But if you rewatch that episode knowing that they're actually working for a rogue faction of SHIELD that sought to depose Coulson as director since they thought him unstable, his pep-talk makes absolutely no sense. |
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The Supernews sketch "Texting Your Way Through Work"note US only...sorry. has the corporate buzzword variety. | |
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Hadji from Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures is usually a fountain of Koans, but even he has his moments of this: | |
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Used deliberately at the end of Urinetown: The Musical. "I See a River, Flowing for Freedom" is a great catchphrase for a new revolution, until you face the fact that all the water is gone, and the townsfolk keep telling themselves that "I See a River Just In You" means they won't die of dehydration. | |
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The subreddit r/im14andthisisdeep | |
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In The Matrix, the text on the computer in the beginning reads: "Wake up Neo. The Matrix has you." While this is technically correct, there is no plausible reason why any of the characters would feel the need to write that. It just sounds mysterious to the audience who doesn't yet know what the Matrix is. Perhaps Trinity's writing it in her blog. Then again, it might be deliberately planting the question "what is the Matrix?" in Neo's head. | |
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Heroes and its notoriously meaningless Fauxlosophic Narration at the start of each episode. | |
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John Finnemore's Double Acts: In "The Rebel Alliance", the meek mother of the bride has been excluded by her daughter's mother in-law, with her only permitted contribution to the reception being a small, brief poem about apples that has nothing to do with anything. The other bride's ex figures this was part of the mother-in-law's revenge, searching the internet for the most meaningless guff she could find. | |
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Quite a bit of this in Warrior #1, as i-mockery and Spoony repeatedly point out. | |
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In The Battle for Middle-earth, the heroes have standard slogans they will say when they are selected. Particularly Arwen's: "Their treachery betrays them" makes no sense, but to a lesser extent also Glorfindel's "Something is a-foul" and others. "Betrays" in this case most likely means "reveals their disguised intentions", making the expression akin to "They show their true colors." |
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Borderlands 2 features a unique gun whose flavor text is "Bison bison had had had had had bison bison bison shi shi shi". It looks like a word salad, but in reality, it's a reference to how repeating eight times "buffalo" results in a grammatically correct English sentence, an English grammar puzzle where inserting the right punctuation on a sentence that repeats "had" 11 times makes it actually readable and meaningful, and a Chinese poem that, when read out loud, sounds like "shi shi shi shi shi shi". Hyperion guns are named after corporate buzzwords, with the given explanation being that CEO Handsome Jack wants them to sound like weapons "Made by smart sons of bitches for smart sons of bitches". As such, you'll have pistols known as "Inspiring Synergy" or shotguns called "Practical Face-Time". |
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Jeff Williams' songs for RWBY are somehow more coherent than expected from something that emerges from readthroughs of the script - at times whole lines of dialogue are made into lyrics - but volume 1's "This Will Be The Day" ("I don't wanna hear your absolution\Hope you're ready for a revolution\Welcome to a world of new solutions\Welcome to a world of bloody evolution") is guilty of this. | |
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Mystery Men: The Sphinx speaks entirely in bizarre ice cream koans. It makes him seem terribly mysterious to everyone - with the exception of Mr Furious, who just finds it annoying (not that Furious isn't above cracking meaningless tough-guy platitudes about how angry and dangerous he is, either). | |
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A Modest Destiny: Morris, Full Stop. What can you expect, he's insane and the pope. | |
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Parodied in the film version of Idiocracy when the idiotic people of the future who have some sort of authority throw around unnecessarily large words, often misusing or mispronouncing them. "Let's see if we can't commencerate these proceedings." "This test will help find you a job while you are a particular individual in jail." | |
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In Harry Potter, during Dumbledore's funeral, Harry listens to Elphias Doge, mentioning things like "strength of mind" or "nobility of spirit," and thinks it doesn't mean very much. He then remembers some of the first words he ever heard Dumbledore speak, at the beginning of his 1st year — "Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak!" — has to suppress a smile, and wonders what's the matter with him. (Funny memories at funerals are not at all unusual.) | |
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Uto Nakaji in The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You talks almost exclusively like this. She's a chuunibyou who projects the image of a mysterious Wandering Minstrel, but it's extremely obvious that she's not actually saying anything of substance. Her most frequent go-to is along the lines of "Perhaps it is. Or it is not." Which typically prompts the response, "Which is it?" | |
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Dilbert did it first. An episode of the cartoon also took "Synergy" head-on. | |
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In King of the Hill, Hank's father-in-law is a Montana rancher who speaks exclusively in these. Naturally, Hank eats it up. | |
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Zak of The Secret Saturdays: Sweet sounds of nature's beautifuliss majesty. | |
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Discworld: Parodied in the novel The Truth, in which William de Worde comments that the newspaper's tagline, "The Truth Shall Make You Free" (with the last word receiving typos as a Running Gag), sounds "very meaningful without, um, actually meaning anything." The banknotes in Making Money read "Doth Not A Penny To The Widow Outshine The Unconquered Sun". When asked what this means, Moist von Lipwig cheerfully admits he hasn't the slightest idea; he just threw together some words that sounded suitably impressive. Knowing Pratchett and his fondness for Genius Bonus and Fridge Brilliance, this may indeed be referencing the biblical 'Widow's Gift', historical 'Widow's Penny' and mythological Mithras (impressive concepts on their own), garbled and piled with no connection whatsoever for comedic purposes. In general Moist has uncanny skill bluffing with deliberate Meaningless Meaningful Words (he is a Con Man, after all). For instance, in Going Postal his dramatic removal of a sack over his head during his test to become the Postmaster, proclaiming that "The Unfranked Man may walk in darkness, but the postman loves the light!" It doesn't mean anything at all... he just knew it was dramatic enough that the Brotherhood of Funny Hats could never bring themselves to disqualify him for it. When used for evil, this trope proves to be his Berserk Button: when the Grand Trunk issues a press release that consists of nothing but doublespeak and impressively empty promises, Moist is so infuriated that he discovers he has been cursing loudly for several minutes without realizing it. The pass phrases in Guards! Guards!: "The significant owl hoots in the night. The caged whale knows nothing of the mighty deeps." This is a parody of Spy Speak (it had to be so outrageously complex because Spy Speak is ridiculous in its own right). In Interesting Times, Rincewind finds the enthusiastically shouted slogans of the Red Army to be this. After a while, he joins in with lines like "Tuppence A Bucket, Well Stamped Down" and "How's Your Granny Off For Soap?" The fact no one seems to notice he's making fun of them confirms his suspicions. |
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The 1998 film The Man in the Iron Mask had a doozy of one. In reply to a perfectly sensible lament of the Queen's, Aramis came out with a memorable bit of important-sounding nonsense. | |
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Every other sentence that comes out of the mouth of Xavier: Renegade Angel, intentionally. | |
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It's fair to also add that in the original Final Fantasy VII, Cid claims to have seen the play, and quotes from it. The version he saw didn't suck as much. | |
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The Typical Gundam SEED Destiny: "Your life is your own! We fight for what we believe in! Until it gives us blisters! Blisters of hope! Calluses of freedom!" | |
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The banknotes in Making Money read "Doth Not A Penny To The Widow Outshine The Unconquered Sun". When asked what this means, Moist von Lipwig cheerfully admits he hasn't the slightest idea; he just threw together some words that sounded suitably impressive. Knowing Pratchett and his fondness for Genius Bonus and Fridge Brilliance, this may indeed be referencing the biblical 'Widow's Gift', historical 'Widow's Penny' and mythological Mithras (impressive concepts on their own), garbled and piled with no connection whatsoever for comedic purposes. | |
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In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Genesis is constantly quoting from a play called Loveless. It contains lines like: It's fair to also add that in the original Final Fantasy VII, Cid claims to have seen the play, and quotes from it. The version he saw didn't suck as much. In light of Dirge of Cerberus, mentioned below, though unconfirmed, this could very well be related to the role Omega Weapon plays in the story, for its prime directive is to, when all life on the Planet is threatened, absorb The Lifestream once Chaos rounds up all living beings and send them there to be dissolved, and then departs for a new planet to continue the cycle. (Sephiroth in Advent Children gives a similar line near the end, but the intent was to follow Jenova's lead and drain various worlds of their life essence.) This is most likely additionally linked to the game's superboss Minerva (who Genesis believes to be the goddess of his favorite theatrical work), as supplemental materials imply she is the physical embodiment of the Lifestream and its judgments, thus making her Gaia's will. |
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During the final few hours of Grandia II, most of the heroes continuously say things like "True power... true justice is in the heart" and talk an awful lot about "the power of the human heart". | |
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Knights of the Old Republic: Lampshaded and parodied in The Sith Lords, when Atton mocks "Jedi talk". Incidentally, when most Jedi speak this way, it comes across as this. Typically it's actually Metaphorically True or a Cassandra Truth that's been very cunningly disguised, apparently for no reason except that the Jedi are pretentious assholes. |
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In Everworld, Token Evil Teammate and arguable Big Bad Senna purposely uses this when talking with her "friends" in an attempt to manipulate them. Unfortunately for her, most of them aren't going to accept it, especially Jalil. | |
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The film adaptation of Winter's Tale opens with this fairly nonsensical voiceover: | |
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Mr. Champloo of Disgaea 3 speaks almost entirely in Ice Cream Koans involving cooking metaphors. Sometimes these actually make quite a bit of sense (in context anyway), but other times they are completely meaningless. Only Almaz tends to notice this. | |
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Labyrinth, when Sarah asks the 'seer' with the bird on his head the way through the Labyrinth, his reply is along the lines of: "Sometimes the way forward... is also the way back." | |
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Justified in Mad Max: Fury Road: after the Bullet Farmer is blinded by shrapnel when Furiosa shot out his headlights, he undergoes a spectacular Villainous Breakdown and embarks on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, all the while proclaiming "I AM THE SCALES OF JUSTICE, CONDUCTOR OF THE CHOIR OF DEATH!" | |
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Parodied in Waiting for Godot: "Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labors left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labors of men that as a result of the labors unfinished of Testew and Cunnard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labors of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation wastes and pines wastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell fades away I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and then the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis the facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull fading fading fading and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labors abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard tennis the stones so calm Cunard unfinished..." It takes a full five minutes in the film adaptation. | |
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The original Silent Hill's intro begins with the cryptic phrase "The fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh." One possible interpretation is that it refers to Alessa reaching adolescence while in a crippled state, and her horrified confusion caused by the strange changes her body is undergoing. note Alternatively she understands that the onset of her periods {Blood} means she is ready for childbirth {Flesh}, and thus the birth of the God is nigh. It correlates with one of the game's main inspirations: Stephen King's Carrie. | |
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In Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Kaufman goes into a long rant about sex during one of the session scenes that follows along the lines of "You're probably thinking 'why haven't we talked about sex yet? I thought you psychiatrists are supposed to be obsessed with sex.' It's not us, it's you. Sex is death. The flying leap into the abyss, the losing of one's self, the tiger in space! To deny sex is to deny death itself! You're either getting enough, or not. And you are obviously not getting enough... let's see this through." | |
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In Interesting Times, Rincewind finds the enthusiastically shouted slogans of the Red Army to be this. After a while, he joins in with lines like "Tuppence A Bucket, Well Stamped Down" and "How's Your Granny Off For Soap?" The fact no one seems to notice he's making fun of them confirms his suspicions. | |
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Austin Walker of the Giant Bomb podcast "The Giant Beastcast" will get on you for being lazy if you describe a game as "interesting" without further explanation. | |
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In Dirge of Cerberus, Hojo goes on several extended and overwrought rants about all the horrible stuff he's going do to the human race now that he's back. Their only saving grace is that they're delivered oozing with Ham and Cheese by both characters' voice actors. | |
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In the parodic mystery film Murder by Death, various spoofs of famous detectives have been told that someone will die at a specific time. The Miss Marple spoof insists that everyone join hands in preparation as "The chain is stronger when the links are unbroken". Yeah, that's sort of what make it a chain. | |
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Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal, a poorly translated bootleg of Pokemon Crystal Version, is full of examples of this. | |
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Bayonetta: Father Balder, the (apparent) Big Bad, delivers such a speech to Bayonetta in the penultimate chapter, repeating himself three whole times. The Reveal is actually easy to understand: (Bayonetta is effectively half of God Herself, magically transported to the future. Only by meeting her past self could she recover from the Laser-Guided Amnesia and awaken.) However, Balder buries this information under so many Meaningless Meaningful Words that he is borderline incomprehensible. Interestingly, Luka actually lampshades this shortly after he finishes. | |
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Okabe Rintaro from Steins;Gate often throws around cool-sounding, but ultimately meaningless phrases like "Steins;Gate" and "El Psy Congroo" as part of his Hououin Kyouma persona. Later, his future self does the same thing while giving a pep talk to his past self as part of illustrating his point that all of his experiences thus far have not been meaningless. In particular, he named the world line where Kurisu is alive and the world is safe Steins;Gate. | |
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The Office (US): In the 8th season episode Gettysburg, Robert California thinks that Kevin is talking about something profound when he talks about the best cookie in the vending machine. It takes until the end of the episode to realize he's talking about cookies. | |
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Mocked in a sketch on A Bit of Fry and Laurie, "Young Tory of the Year," showing a competition in which judges evaluate Young Conservatives on their ability to make stirring keynote speeches from meaningless buzzwords. Extra points for "displays of general prejudice and ignorance." | |
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Parodied in Team America: World Police with the line, | |
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Kaz from Neo Yokio likes to sound deep and thoughtful... not that there's much weight behind his words. | |
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This turns out to be a key plot point in Glass Onion. Miles Bron, the tech bro/guru who is hosting his annual meeting of his circle of friends known as the Disruptors, is quite fond of waxing philosophical about the nature of the world and how it's only people like them who can truly make change. But Miles is ultimately revealed to be a complete moron who doesn't know a goddamn thing about what he's saying, and furthermore steals the ideas and work of other people to push himself up while using his endless cash flow to keep the other Disruptors loyal. Viewers can spot this early on by listening carefully to Miles's speeches and noticing all of the factual errors and mispronunciations in them. As Benoit Blanc sums it up, the key to the whole mystery is quite simple: "Miles Bron is an idiot." | |
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In Red Dead Redemption, Abraham Reyes's speeches consist of him throwing around rabble-rousing words such as "freedom" and "for the people". It's clear to the player that Reyes is nothing more than a self-important blowhard. | |
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Happens in a scene between Harry and Slughorn in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince film. Slughorn tells a poignant story about Lily giving him a pet fish, but the script has to take it just a little too far by having Harry say, "Or the fishbowl will always remain empty." | |
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In an early episode of Robin Hood Robin and Marian have this rather baffling conversation: | |
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The heroes in JLA: Act of God tried to sound deep but ended up sounding strange and confusing. | |
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In I'm Here to Help, Emerald is prone to this. One notable example is his apparently infamous quote to the future Mars: "I'm on the outside looking in, Mars, and I don't like what I see". The people of Crystal Tokyo apparently found this so interesting that they made it his defining quote, of sorts. | |
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Jeeves and Wooster: P. G. Wodehouse uses quite a few of these for his character Madeline Bassett. The author describes it best through one of his characters: | |
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Discussed in The Enchantress of Florence, where the traveller mocks the Emperor's use of the trope. He claims that "meaningful" maxims formulated by means of paradox often lead foolish men to think they've come up with wisdom. This offence almost got him killed by the vain Emperor, but the latter considered himself above such a thing and forgave him, which can be interpreted as an even greater act of vanity... | |
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This writing style is consciously incorporated into a speech in the world of The West Wing: For example, this exchange between Will and Toby: |
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Code Geass often features vague proclamations about power and justice though other musings are fairly relevant and a couple even get a Call-Back later on. There's also an In-Universe example, where Lelouch (as Zero) threatens Jeremiah by mentioning "Orange", then uses his Mind-Control Eyes to make the man act uncharacteristically obedient. Lelouch later tells C.C. that the word was completely arbitrary and meaningless, but making it sound significant, combined with Jeremiah's shift in behavior, would make the Britannians attach all sorts of imagined meaning to it. It works perfectly, and Jeremiah's reputation is destroyed because his peers assume that "Orange" is a reference to some scandal or misdeed that he was trying to cover up. |
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Parodied in the novel The Truth, in which William de Worde comments that the newspaper's tagline, "The Truth Shall Make You Free" (with the last word receiving typos as a Running Gag), sounds "very meaningful without, um, actually meaning anything." | |
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The flavor text of Bronze Calendar, from Magic: The Gathering's Unglued joke set, is "Every page holds a month, every date a numeral." According to Mark Rosewater, it "makes fun of a certain style of flavor text where we sound lyrical but aren't really saying anything." Made even less meaningful because the card's art (intentionally) shows a colander, not a calendar. |
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Lampshaded and parodied in The Sith Lords, when Atton mocks "Jedi talk". | |
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Southland Tales has a serious problem with this, since it's only the second half of the story. Most of the (absolutely crucial) exposition is in three comic book prequels, which explain everything from the idiom "Fluid Karma" to what's going on with the mysterious screenplay The Power that people keep quoting from with absolutely no context. What's not explained, however, is where Richard Kelly got his definition of "pimp" from. | |
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In Game of Thrones Daenerys briefly used a catchphrase that the bickering noble houses were spokes on a wheel and she intended to break the wheel. After a while Tyrion points out that she intends to rule as an absolute monarch by right of descent from the man who put that system in place and to maintain rule through the existing aristocracy and directly asks what she means by breaking the wheel; she doesn't give him an answer, and quietly stops using it. She starts using it again in the finale, and it's made clear that the reason she couldn't explain it is that she honestly doesn't see a distinction between "liberated by Daenerys", "conquered by Daenerys", and "destroyed by Daenerys". Out of universe, of course, book-Daenerys never says this phrase or anything like it, it's an invention of the showrunners. Book fansites like the owners of semi-official Westeros.org mocked when the TV show started using it in Season 4, accusing the showrunners of just thinking it was a cool line that sounded important but had no real higher meaning planned out. |
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TV Tropes itself contains a high percentage of articles where the word "said" is used before a noun when a perfectly ordinary "the" would have communicated the point just fine, and been less awkward. The "said (noun)" construction appears to be gaining ground on the Internet in general, in an apparent attempt to make a statement sound either educated or sardonic, with varying results. | |
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In Oh God, Not Again! Harry turns Dumbledore's own wisdom back on him when Dumbledore asks him for the truth. | |
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In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the mice decide to claim that the Ultimate Question is "How many roads must a man walk down?" because it sounds deep without tying them down to any actual meaning. | |
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In Koan of the Day, the guru tries to define love. | |
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In Disco Elysium, since the Player Character is a cop, you actually get several chances to weaponize this. You can intimidate the citizens you encounter into compliance by threatening them with big legal-sounding words and implied consequences for failing to obey you, even if what you're saying is actually just borderline nonsense with no rooting in any actual laws. There is also the "Sunday Friend", a Moralintern bureaucrat who speaks solely in political and bureaucratic buzzwords that all revolve around how his government's greatest priority is "Price Stabilite" at all costs. None of this helps to answer anything relating to the Detective's case nor why the Sunday Friend is in some random college student's apartment. |
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From the low-budget sci-fi movie R.O.T.O.R.: "We're all prognosticators of the future. And since our particular purpose of vision belongs to the creed of law enforcement, we open inroads into tomorrow, in ways and means of those who would serve and protect justice and order." | |
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In Armed & Delirious, the main character Granny often rambles in meaningless dialogue that sounds like it means something, but never does. Not that the rest of the game's surreal environment helps any. | |
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In The Bright Sessions: | |
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Perhaps the most famous example from Doctor Who's sixty-year run: "There's nothing you can do to prevent the catharsis of spurious morality!" | |
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Lemon Demon: Parodied in "Redesign Your Logo"; every line of the song is six syllables of corporate jargon taken from an infamous design document from 2008, which makes redesigning a corporate logo sound like an epic journey towards enlightenment. | |
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In The Twilight Saga, Bella uses very melodramatic words to describe things. This was to make her sound smart, especially in contrast to the mediocre slang her classmates use. | |
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"The Sidestep" in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (see the Theatre section on this page). | |
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The various tech companies seen on Silicon Valley love to spout out buzzword-filled videos and literature to try and seem as if they're doing something to help the world when it's really just an ego trip for everyone involved or desperate attempts at gaining funding. By contrast, it's the socially awkward Richard's plain and somewhat stilted presentation that makes the most impact (helped greatly by the fact that Pied Piper is a revolutionary compression algorithm). | |
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South Park's Chef Aid special revealed that Chef was responsible for teaming Elton John with Bernie Taupin because John's own lyrics just didn't cut it, or as Chef put it, "a retarded monkey could write better lyrics". | |
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As of the American Idiot/21st Century Breakdown era, Billie Joe Armstrong has an unfortunate habit of throwing around pretty words that don't seem to fit in well with the song's meaning and gratuitous references to Christianity (especially crucifixion). For example, take this snippet from "Restless Heart Syndrome": | |
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In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Restless", every word that the Cheese Man says. | |
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Hey Arnold!: In "Mr. Green Runs," local butcher Mr. Green gets fed up with Councilman Gladhand, the elected representative for the neighborhood, and decides to run against him for the seat. Gladhand uses important-sounding but hollow words in his speeches, and at first, Mr. Green thinks he needs to do the same. However, after a pep talk from Arnold, Green realizes that he should play to his own strengths and begins communicating with clear langauge and easy to understand metaphors instead. The strategy works, leading to Gladhand's defeat. | |
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An episode of Family Guy has Brian write a typical meaningless book full of these on a dare. Even the title (Wish It. Want It. Get It.) fits. The book is an instant bestseller, and the success goes to Brian's head. He's eventually invited to The Real Time with Bill Maher, where Maher thoroughly hands him his tail. First, he analyzes the title of the book, pointing out that "wish" and "want" are, pretty much, synonyms. And neither the title nor the book explains how to get from "wish"/"want" to "get", invoking the Missing Steps Plan trope. Further, when Brian tries to bullshit his way through it by claiming he's only tapping into the people's zeitgeist, another panel member asks Brian if he even knows what "zeitgeist" means (for the record, it's "the intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought that typifies and influences the culture of a particular period in time"). Unable to answer, Brian blurts out that he wrote it in a few days and, when Maher tells him everything he thinks about him, ends up peeing on the floor, causing Maher to shoo him out. | |
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How I Met Your Mother In which Barney overuses and REALLY plays up (to the dismay of his friends) the word "legendary". When Robin needs to get a broadcasting job quickly (or else lose her visa), Barney steps in and helps her create a video resume. Which mostly consists of having her spout meaningless (and made up) corporate buzzwords like "linketivity" and "possimpoble" (for when you go beyond the possible, then keep going beyond the impossible). |
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More Information Than You Require parodies this with the "shitty aphorisms", such as "Say what you will, but a chicken has a long and pointy face." | |
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Soultaker gives us the line "Led Zeppelin was wrong. There is no stairway to heaven. And if there was, you certainly couldn't buy your way in." It's extra funny since there is an elevator. And a ladder. | |
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Dragonlance: in Dragons of Summer Flame, a barely-trained wizard casts the most powerful spell in history by agreeing to "offer himself" in order to cast it (compared to Raistlin, who sacrificed his health and humanity in order to become a great wizard). It's not clear what exactly he meant, as he walks out of it healthy and completely unharmed. | |
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In BlazBlue, this constitutes the entirety of Arakune's dialogue, with sentences like, "If there was an endless fountain of souls, there would be no more hunger, but souls will lose their significance." This was intentional, however, as none of the other characters know what he's talking about, and this behavior was the result of him losing his sanity by being in the Boundary realm for too long. It sounds intellectual, but devoid of any normal human logic. | |
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The Kingdom Hearts series is full to the brim with such dialog, particularly with regard to its primary villains, some of whom go entire games without having a single line that isn't a monument to this trope. In Kingdom Hearts II, a villain tells you that "if light and darkness are eternal, then surely we Nobodies are the same. Eternal!" Ouch. It wasn't so much what was said, but the delivery, and especially the way the word "eternal" was emphasized and drawn out, as if it somehow had special meaning. Of course the heroes tell him to shut up and take his beating. His statement can be generalized to mean: If two opposite things have a similar aspect then something unrelated must share the same aspect. The heroes also point out that, even if the concept that he is associated with is eternal, that doesn't mean he himself is immortal. This gem is a shining example: |
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Parodied in The Sopranos. Most of the characters do this from time to time but the most egregious perpetrator, by far, is Little Carmine. He would frequently misuse or mispronounce big words in an effort to sound smart or eloquent. Even characters on the show recognized his stupidity. | |
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In an episode of Babylon 5 where Londo is trying to teach Vir how to slant diplomatic dispatches, he invokes this trope. In a later episode a member of the court mentioned to Vir that they knew Londo had been involved in writing the reports specifically because they used this style. |
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To quote Mike Patton: | |
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The 2008 Lyttle Lytton Contest featured this gem from The Amazing Spider-Man (1999) #544 (the first part of One More Day): | |
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The pass phrases in Guards! Guards!: "The significant owl hoots in the night. The caged whale knows nothing of the mighty deeps." This is a parody of Spy Speak (it had to be so outrageously complex because Spy Speak is ridiculous in its own right). | |
| Meaningless Meaningful Words / int_fe5f7909 | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Meaningless Meaningful Words / int_fe5f7909 | featureConfidence |
1.0 | |
| Guards! Guards! | hasFeature |
Meaningless Meaningful Words / int_fe5f7909 |
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