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About the phrase everycreature?


heavens-champion

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When I first joined the site I was bothered by "everypony" when groups contained obvious non-ponies.

Then I came to understand that to be "pony" was to be part of the herd, not a statement of your biological origin; to be "one of us". That is why Twi switching to "everycreature" bothered me quite a bit - while an obvious attempt at Equestrian political correctness, it was also exclusionist, saying that the creatures of the School of Friendship were NOT part of their society (which could well be true, as most of the Young Six are not subjects of Celestia, but is still in direct opposition to what the School of Friendship was supposed to be about).

So yeah, I think the Young Six should be "everypony".

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Everycreature is meant to try to keep the terminology consistent but to the me it sounds both like a needless mouthful...and a little condescending, not to mention stupid, especially when “everyone” can easily drive home the same point, not to mention it’s a word that actually exists 

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5 hours ago, CypherHoof said:

When I first joined the site I was bothered by "everypony" when groups contained obvious non-ponies.

Then I came to understand that to be "pony" was to be part of the herd, not a statement of your biological origin; to be "one of us". That is why Twi switching to "everycreature" bothered me quite a bit - while an obvious attempt at Equestrian political correctness, it was also exclusionist, saying that the creatures of the School of Friendship were NOT part of their society (which could well be true, as most of the Young Six are not subjects of Celestia, but is still in direct opposition to what the School of Friendship was supposed to be about).

So yeah, I think the Young Six should be "everypony".

While I see where you're coming from, I'm not sure I agree.  Twilight is trying to be inclusive.  I mean... many of the students are not ponies, so why would one call them ponies?  Sometimes the characters say "everypony" even when there's a non-pony present, such as Spike, but it's just a habit, and nobody is offended.  But since they have now brought so many more non-pony creatures into the mix, they wanted to make sure they all felt included.  I believe I see it in the opposite way that you do--grouping all non-pony students together as "everypony" just doesn't make sense to me.  It's almost like it's telling the non-ponies that they should be ponies, that being ponies is better.  Pony Master Race, if you will.  Using a more neutral term would seem to me to be more inclusive and send the message that they're together, regardless of race.  And just to be clear, I really don't see this as some overly cringy P.C. thing.  FIM has never given me the feeling that they cave to extremist, fanatical PC pressure.  Instead, the messages they send have always felt to me to be genuine, logical, and rational messages of actual tolerance and equality.

I'll add another piece--you mentioned that "everypony" bothered you when you first joined the site.  Are you talking about actual uses of the term on the show, or are you talking about when we the fans casually use the term to refer to each other?  If it's the former, I basically covered that in the first paragraph.  If the latter, well, we just do that to be cute, nothing more.

To me, this issue seems to become clearer if we try this example with humans and hypothetical non-humans.  Let's say, Vulcans, Klingons, Bajorans, Ferengi, etc.  Even if you've never seen Star Trek, hopefully some of those names are familiar to you.  If I was in a room of mixed company with some humans, some Vulcans, some Klingons, etc, I wouldn't be tempted to call those other races "humans".  I wouldn't be tempted for a second to say "everyhuman" in an attempt to make the Vulcans and Klingons feel at home.  It's biologically false and possibly offensive.  Why would I call a Vulcan a human?  Why would a Vulcan want to be called a human?  It just makes no sense to me.  You say that the Student 6 should be "everypony", but what about the cast of a Star Trek show?  Take DS9 for example.  I picked that one simply because I'm watching through it right now, so it's on my mind.  The main cast includes a Trill, a shapeshifter, a Bajoran, a Ferengi, and in the latter half of the show, a Klingon.  Would you say that that group should be "everyhuman"?  Or maybe you'd prefer Lord of the Rings instead?  In the Fellowship, you've got a maia, a dwarf, an elf, four hobbits, and only two humans.  Would you call that group "everyhuman"?  Or "everyhobbit", or any race-specific term for that matter?

Twilight calling mixed races "everpony" makes about as much sense as calling them "everygriffon".  I know that it's a pony school, and they're learning about pony culture, but so what?  That's simply because these other races never really figured out the friendship thing.  Pony culture kind of has the monopoly on friendship in this world, it seems.  So they teach what they know.  If I attended an academy on the planet Vulcan to study logic and meditation, I wouldn't expect them to call me a Vulcan, or say "everyvulcan" referring to me as well.  I'm not a Vulcan.  (I also wouldn't care if they did say "everyvulcan" just out of habit.)  But that doesn't mean that they're excluding me, or that I'm unwelcome in their society.  Calling the various creatures "everypony" just seems, to me, to be implying that they'd have been better off being born equine.  It's much better to send the message that they're all fine, and welcome, just the way they are.  That's just how I see it.

Of course, the obvious solution here, as lots of people have already pointed out, is just to use the neutral and non-racial words that already exist: "everyone" and "everybody".  The reason they didn't is because it would have gone unnoticed, whereas the writers wanted to underline the fact that Twilight was adopting a new term to include all races.  And you know what?  I don't see anything wrong with that.  I'd prefer "everyone" and "everybody", but honestly, I'm completely fine with "everycreature."  I actually thought it was kind of cute.

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4 hours ago, Midnight Solace said:

I think it would be better if the characters just said, "everyone" instead of "everycreature." I mean, I know why they would say that, but it just sounds so... Weird.

Specially considering Twi spent at least two days total in the human world and she even used the term herself at least once :dash:. Seriously, did she forget or something  :bea:

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14 hours ago, Sondash Studios said:

"Everypony" and "Everyone" sounds good enough, but "everycreature" makes it sound like were talking about aliens here.

Considering Aliens fall in the category creatures that is. :-P

Joking aside, it doesn't really matter to me personally. I don't find it offensive, or cringy for that matter. The thing I cringed by is people getting angry about the phrase...

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On 12/25/2018 at 8:18 PM, CypherHoof said:

Then I came to understand that to be "pony" was to be part of the herd, not a statement of your biological origin; to be "one of us".

Kinda like black dudes call a white friend "My ni**a." Sorry. LOL

 

The word "everycreature" is being PC. It's annoying that they had to put that much of an effort to make up a new word like a sore thumb and call others like that. It's a literary disaster as well. It's nothing more than bragging about "Hey, I'm PC and inclusive." when they use that term instead of the more natural but less attention seeking word "everybody" or "everyone" which means the same thing. It is actually more inclusive because it could include Boulder. It shows exactly what is ridiculous about using PC terms.

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I would keep everything as it is. ‘Everypony’ is a fine phrase, meant to sound like ‘everybody,’ and if it isn’t meant to be insulting it shouldn’t be insulting. Any insult to be imagined comes from the way the (human) world over-scrutinizes everything to label an insult or insensitivity. ‘Everycreature’ sounds more animal than intelligent and doesn’t suit our smart and well-adjusted ponies. I see no need for a change of phrase that characterizes the show in such a fun and harmless way.

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Technically, 4 of the Students are based on Mythical Creatures. That's likely why the showrunners had them use the term creatures. Heck on the MLP Wiki, all the fictional species are listed under the Creatures section while all real world animals like Yaks, Rabbits, and Cats are under the Animal section.

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