Aliasing word_balloon → speech_bubble
Link to alias

Reason:

Same thing. speech_bubble wiki says "The following tags are aliased to this tag: word_bubble, speech_balloons, speech_balloon, speech_bubbles, text_bubble.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_balloon says "Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons or word balloons) ..."

who on earth calls it word balloon

It means that characters has been saying in the comics. And that is what word balloons are called.

deme169 said:
It means that characters has been saying in the comics. And that is what word balloons are called.

Who on Earth calls it "Word Balloon"? Everybody I know refers to them as Speech Bubbles, so I"m curious where you're getting Word Balloon from.

deme169 said:
It means that characters has been saying in the comics. And that is what word balloons are called.

i know what "word balloon" means, i was asking who the fuck calls speech bubbles as word balloons. i havent seen anyone ever call it as word balloon until now

Furrin_Gok said:
Who on Earth calls it "Word Balloon"? Everybody I know refers to them as Speech Bubbles, so I"m curious where you're getting Word Balloon from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_balloon says
"Speech balloons (also speech bubbles, dialogue balloons or word balloons) "

Google search for "word balloons" gets 165,000 results.
Google search for "word balloon" gets 184,000 results.

edit: I mean, logically speech balloon is better as those not in the know might confused word baloon with thought balloon.

Anyway, I'm glad e621 preferred tag is speech bubble. (speech balloon is equally good)

EarthFurst2 said:
Google search for "word balloons" gets 165,000 results.
Google search for "word balloon" gets 184,000 results.

Google result count is notoriously unreliable.
...I tried browsing the results for "word balloon", and the counter changed to 162 results after a few pages.

The Ngram viewer is usually better.
British English - Not used at all.
American English - Equally common.

So, to answer the question, it's only used by Americans. But since we use American spelling for the tags, might as well alias it. +1

Genjar said:
So, to answer the question, it's only used by Americans. But since we use American spelling for the tags, might as well alias it. +1

American here. I've never heard anyone say it...it feels old, like something someone from the 1950s would say. However I also see no issue in making the alias. Maybe some time traveler from the 50s will jump forward in time and want to upload some furry porn, we need to accommodate that person.

"lets see here...how's a guy to tag this? Hmmm... 'lady_of_the_night buxom bawdy ankles word_balloon' that should do it!"

I feel like I've heard people say it before, but it's so... interchangeable with speech_bubble, that I wouldn't remember who said which word..

I think "word" might gain some traction because a bubble/balloon does not necessarily contain SPEECH. It could contain thoughts, or sometimes sound effects, usually intended to indicate that a sound is happening in a particular place-- a "POKE" near a pricked finger for example, or ??? or ?! or ! or ZZZ or !@#$.)

As for bubble/balloon ... Who knows.

Isn't it weird that we can look at a thought bubble and we all understand that these are unspoken words? the amount of subtle and unspoken linguistic understanding we gain is amazing :D

FUN FACTS time :D

Did you know that the first 'speech bubbless' in history were, to our knowledge, made by the Mesoamericans back in 650 BC? They used little lines to indicate sound ... this bird, for example is speaking the name of an ancient king!

Over in europe, people LITERALLY has scrolls oozing out of their mouths

The more modern word bubbles showed up somewhere around the american revolution, though fell out of fasion til 1904--where they required explaination! Anyway, the comic industry basically made sure that all of us understand what a word bubble is :)

Though by "all of us" I mean westerners--japanese word bubbles, for example, are rather different :D

SnowWolf said:
I think "word" might gain some traction because a bubble/balloon does not necessarily contain SPEECH. It could contain thoughts, or sometimes sound effects, usually intended to indicate that a sound is happening in a particular place-- a "POKE" near a pricked finger for example, or ??? or ?! or ! or ZZZ or !@#$.)

There's also pictographics, which can be placed in speech bubbles.