If the word 'Zombie' didn't exist, what do you think you'd call the walking dead?

[Deleted]

So, I've recently been playing through Telltale's The Walking Dead Season 1 in preparation for the release of Season 2 and I've always thought that it was a nifty idea that, in the various incarnations of the franchise, the word "zombie" is not a part of popular vocabulary. This means that when the apocalyptic shit hit the fan and corpses reanimated and started eating people, survivors had to come up with original labels to describe these shuffling husks. We've heard them referred to by names such as, "walkers", "biters", "geeks" and others, but I'm curious to find out what other people think they might call zombies if that word was not a part of their vocabulary.

So, if the world were to end due to that infamous hypothetical, what do you think you would refer to the walking dead as?

Personally, I'm quite a sound oriented person, so I think I might refer to them as "Groaners" (assuming they made that cliche "I'm dead" noise) or something similar. That or maybe "Veggies", because they appear to have lost all sense of sentience and the personalities they may have once possessed and being decaying corpses they'd probably vaguely resemble rotten vegetables. Also, hoping that my sense of irony would remain intact, I think it'd be amusing to label monsters that feed exclusively on flesh with a slang term to describe vegetarians.

[Feali]

Undead probably. Or just "the Dead".

[Catta]

Rotters...

Or undead as above.

[NatePsy]

Undead is the first word that pops up into my mind when thinking of walking dead.

[shamantime]

Undead is what I thought as well.

[Rainec]

In the anime, Highschool of the Dead, the characters simply refer to the zombies as "them".

Anything goes.

[Nefarious Tea]

GW2 uses "risen" for its undead. Also, there's an old Norse word - Draugr - which also means undead. I can see that being used in non-English languages.

the word "zombie" is not a part of popular vocabulary. This means that when the apocalyptic shit hit the fan and corpses reanimated and started eating people, survivors had to come up with original labels

It also just dawned on me (I don't watch this show). If the word "Zombie" doesn't exist in this universe, then it means there should be no black people either, because it comes from Vodun. No Vodun means no slave trade happened to create the syncretism of native African religions with christianity necessary for Vodun. No slave trade means Africa doesn't exist since it was known in antiquity. No Africa thus means no black people.

TL;DR: If there are black people on the show, the writers are idiots for either including them or NOT including the word zombie.

[Deleted]

Undead, Walking Dead, Scourge?

[Saphyron]

hmmm I don't know... Walking dead maybe.

[Nefarious Tea]

Some other made up word just like every other word in the history of existence.

These types of questions aren't philosophical or even interesting. They're an attempt by a small mind to seem intellectual.

And a response to it like this just shows you have an even smaller intellect, unwilling to even entertain hypotheticals.

[Skayth]

Target Practice

[alduron]

Deadies

10 char

[Fiana]

Why would you invent a word for something that does not exist?

And why are you trying to invent a new word for a word that already exists?
How would you call milk if there was no word for milk?

[rcshaggy]

Undead, Walking Dead, Rotting fleshers, The moaners, The icky icky com-bang fleshers, Brain Dead Idiots, The Slightly Flesh Hungers, and so forth. :P

[Zergin8r]

Living Impaired

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How would you call milk if there was no word for milk?

Cow Juice?

[Deleted]

Rotters...

I like Rotters. Especially since in British slang it's used to describe an unpleasant person! xD

In the anime, Highschool of the Dead, the characters simply refer to the zombies as "them".

Anything goes.

I liked that about HotD. A very simple way to show that the people who stood the best chances of surviving were those that understood that the dead weren't human any more. Us and them.

GW2 uses "risen" for its undead. Also, there's an old Norse word - Draugr - which also means undead. I can see that being used in non-English languages.



It also just dawned on me (I don't watch this show). If the word "Zombie" doesn't exist in this universe, then it means there should be no black people either, because it comes from Vodun. No Vodun means no slave trade happened to create the syncretism of native African religions with christianity necessary for Vodun. No slave trade means Africa doesn't exist since it was known in antiquity. No Africa thus means no black people.

TL;DR: If there are black people on the show, the writers are idiots for either including them or NOT including the word zombie.

Risen is cool. And it's not that the word "zombie" doesn't exist in the The Walking Dead universe, it's just that in that universe George A. Romero's Living Dead movies were never made and so 'zombies' never became a staple in modern horror fiction or popular culture generally. The word was out there, but it wasn't a word that would spring to the vast majority of people's minds as the go-to label for referring to an epidemic of infectious, animate corpses. (It was just a convenient way for the writers to get away from the 'Z word' that has so over-saturated modern horror and avoid some of the stigma that is associated with it. Quite crafty, in my opinion.)

[An-Tuirseach]

Really? Not a single person suggested "ghouls"? I'll go with ghouls, then.

Some other made up word just like every other word in the history of existence.
These types of questions aren't philosophical or even interesting. They're an attempt by a small mind to seem intellectual.

[wariofan1]

Some other made up word just like every other word in the history of existence.

These types of questions aren't philosophical or even interesting. They're an attempt by a small mind to seem intellectual.

Why are you going to Fun Stuff in search for philosophical and interesting things?

[Catta]

Really? Not a single person suggested "ghouls"? I'll go with ghouls, then.

How about geists then!?

Everyone loves stealing german words.

[Bigbamboozal]

Why would you invent a word for something that does not exist?

And why are you trying to invent a new word for a word that already exists?
How would you call milk if there was no word for milk?

LOL! yes and until someone decided to drink whatever comes out of there, there was no milk, and before a man walked on the moon, no one had.
Why are some people trying to take gender out of conversation in some part of the world close to you?
According to the SImpsons: "Malk".
Obviously, because we are nuts and silly, funny colored and odd looking with a center of balance that makes no sense, we're humans

Walkers.skin-sluffs, biters, whatevs, they make for awesome and fun movies.
Funny how many can use cell phones these days....