Pony Service Announcement · 9:24am May 31st, 2016
Minor canon research tidbit follows.
Those cute pony-isms get used in primary canon constantly – “everypony,” “somepony.” Around fandom, you can also see “everygriff” and even “everyling,” to name but a few – though I’ve yet to see “everytaur.”
Now riddle me this: How often do these non-pony versions of pony-isms actually show up in canon?
In primary canon, that is, video, they only show up twice. Both times by Fluttershy. One of these two by the human Fluttershy. To quote, “Does everyanimal have their copy of Wuthering Hooves?” in The Hooffields and McColts and another one in Rainbow Rocks Animated Shorts – “Okay, everyhamster, follow Rarity into the next room.”
No, really, that’s it. Variations on “somepony” never show up at all.
Compared to that, the un-ponied versions get used rather extensively, most commonly “everyone” and occasionally, “somebody,” with no apparent specific rationale to pick between the ponied and non-ponied variations.
Comics are a lot harder to search exhaustively, because I don’t have full transcripts for them. However, a cursory re-scan, primarily of the storylines that are likely to involve potential non-pony pony-isms, reveals that comics very rarely use “every-x” and “some-x” at all, and I could not find any examples in there.
After a few hours digging, I found one other example - the Fluttershy and the Fine Furry Friends Fair chapter book: Rainbow Dash addresses the sheep with “Why doesn’t everysheep take five?” and then Fluttershy, again, says “Maybe I’m the one who’s been making everysheep stressed out.”
On one hand, extending pony-isms to other races is kind of obvious.
On another, it’s an Aragorn’s Pants problem in spades: We don’t know what the default is, and pretty much the only pony who ever uses them at all is Fluttershy.
Are they even a thing?
I'd need to double-check the episode to be sure, but there does appear to be a counterargument in "The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone," with Gilda's summary of Greta's reaction:
Now, that's just the transcript on the Wikia; I have no way of knowing if there was supposed to be a space between those last two words or not. Still an interesting datum, though there doesn't appear to be a yak equivalent in "Party Pooped."
3985684
Just found this moment in the episode and checked. If you ask me, there's a pronounced space between those two words. But yes, I did not grep the transcripts for "any[^pb... ]".
Doing so turns up no results other than this, though.
I used "everysaur" in a silly one shot starring Fluttersaurus Rex. For what that's worth.
Not exactly the instance you're talking about, but in The Cutie Pox, Apple Bloom talks about having been told to have patience by "everypony I know... And now every zebra I know!" This indicates that she doesn't assume a zebra would be included in "everypony."
My take has always been that "everypony" refers to a group that the character knows, assumes, or thinks of as containing only ponies, so something like "every<alternative>" would also apply to a homogeneous collection of beings, and would be rarely used in Equestria. "Everyone" or "everybody" or occasionally "everybeing" would be used for a mixed or unknown group. ("Some<pony/alternative/one>" would similarly be based on the expected subject. And as with gendered words in our world, ponies sometimes get lazy and some characters, like Spike, might even get used to it or identify as pony even though they should make the group mixed.)
I doubt it's that consistent in canon, but that's how I structure my mental style guide. I've thought about this way too much.
3985854
It does sound sensible and has been on my mental style guide as well, but it's not consistent in canon at all. :) It gets smoother as series progresses, but there's no clear rhyme nor reason. The important bit here is that while canon offers examples of 'pony'-ologisms and 'body'-ologisms, there's next to no precedent of specific 'race'-ologisms, and thus no ground beneath the assumption that 'everygriff' would be the correct thing to say.
As I recall, Ember refers to "everydragon" on one occasion. I'll have to double check when I get home from work.
3985991
You're probably thinking of this line: "I don't care what my dad said! I'll show him and every dragon who thinks I'm just a little princess there are better things than being big and strong!"
From the context, you'd think there's a space in it. The actual speech sounds more like it has a space in it than not, at least to my ear.
I think we had an "everybreezie" in one episode, but I'm pushed to remember which...
Seabreeze: That is exactly what I have been telling all of them! But they do not listen to me! Nobreezie ever listens to me!
EDIT: And the one I first thought of...
Seabreeze: There is nothing special about these losers! They cannot handle a simple breeze home! If they could just stick with the program and listen to me, we would be safe! At home! Home, where every Breezie is like us!
3986727
Woot, now that "nobreezie" a solid counterexample!
It's interesting to note, though, that breezies have their own language, and for Seabreeze, Equish/Equestrian/Whatever is a foreign language, so he can't be relied on for determining what is correct.
3986763
It rather strongly implies that the Equestrian language has the terms, but yes, we don't know if the Breezie language has the equivalent terms.
Actually, thinking about it, it could play either way, depending on how you interpret Seabreeze's language skills:
a) If Seabreeze speaks very good Equestrian, then the terms exist in the Equestrian language (and we have no idea about the Breezie language). I tend to go for this because apart from the accent Seabreeze's Equestrian is pretty good.
b) If Seabreeze;s grasp on Equestrian is a little loose, then he may be indulging in the equivalent of Franglais(1), in which case it would be the Breezie language that has the term, and he is just badgering it into Equestrian.
(1) Franglais is a mashup of French and English words and grammar, usually used for humourous effect when it isn't down to bad language skills.
3986853
I actually meant that it is possible that just like we did, Seabreeze, seeing that pony language singles out ponies, assumed that it was correct to single out every other race in the same manner. Which would make it option C - we don't know if breezie language does the same, and it does not permit us to settle whether this usage is considered correct in pony language, because Seabreeze is a foreigner just like we are.
3986868
Good point - although personally I still go for (a) for the reasons given.
That's two (or three, or four, given comments) more examples than I honestly expected to find. I always figured that as a fandom extension.
3988340
It probably is anyway, since inmates have been involved in running the asylum since at least season 3.