http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NotUsingTheZWord

Maybe she would come to her senses if she drank some bottled sky juice.

Ed: Any zombies out there?

Shaun: Don't say that!

Ed: What?

Shaun: That.

Ed: What?

Shaun: That. The Z word. Don't say it.

Ed: Why not?

Shaun: Because it's ridiculous!

Ed: [sighs and rolls his eyes] All right... Are there any out there, though? Shaun of the Dead Any zombies out there?Don't say that!What?That.What?That. The Z word. Don't say it.Why not?Because it's ridiculous![sighs and rolls his eyes] All right... Are there any out there, though?

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A story has creatures that are obviously based on some sort of mythological monster, but goes out of its way not to call them that.

The title comes from Shaun of the Dead, which gave this a Lampshade Hanging, as seen in the page quote: Shaun doesn't like it because it makes him nervous, but the real reason they're not supposed to say it is that they're in a zombie movie.

A subtrope of the Sci Fi Ghetto. Can be used to highlight how their monsters are different. Suppose your monsters are rotting shambling undead that want to drink your blood. Call them zombies and every casual reader's going to assume they're after "braaaaaiiinnss". Calling them vampires brings up images of old black-&-white horror movies, Anne Rice, and sparkles. When it's used to force a sense of "realism" (we don't call them "zombies" because zombies aren't real), it smacks painfully of Genre Blindness. If you were confronted by what appears to be a member of the walking dead, how much effort would you spend coming up with an alternative name? (After all, we know that hobbits are a fictional creation of J. R. R. Tolkien, but people were quick to nickname the extinct species Homo floresiensis as "hobbits" due to their short stature and human likeness.)

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One of the more Genre Savvy reasons is that the walking dead technically aren't zombies. The proper "zombie" is a person whose higher thought processes have been removed, leaving them under the sway of a master. This original zombie is usually the result of occult vodou magic. Some books, such as The Serpent and the Rainbow, argue that vodou practitioners can create zombies through a combination of drugs and cultural beliefs. "P-zombies", or "philosophical zombies ", are even more convoluted  persons who don't have any subjective "experience".

Because of the older meaning of "zombie", it would make sense not to call them that in works that take place before the Romero Living Dead films established them as monsters (and even Romero himself didn't originally call them zombies), but sometimes works in the past will call them that anyway.

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Can also be a form of enforced Genre Blindness where it's implied that the reason no one uses the term is because in-universe the very concept of the living dead in general has never entered a single person's mind in the history of man.

Compare to Differently Powered Individual (for superheroes), Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames (for superheroic individuals) A Mech by Any Other Name (for Humongous Mecha), Magic by Any Other Name (for magic), and Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp" (for animals).

If the reason why someone doesn't want to use the Z-word is not for semantics but because saying the word will bring bad luck, it's The Scottish Trope or Speak of the Devil. If it's because the Z-word is considered rude, it's Fantastic Slurs, or T-Word Euphemism. When used for non-fantastic things and attributes, it may be an attempt to show and not tell.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Audio Plays

In the Big Finish Doctor Who audio production "Loups-Garoux", in which the Fifth Doctor meets a group of werewolves, they're usually called "Loups-Garoux" (a somewhat unfortunate "Blind Idiot" Translation of the French word for "werewolves"), but one character calls them "Lobos", sometimes they're referred to as "wolves", and "Werewolf" is used sparingly.

We're Alive prefers to use terms like "biters" or simply "them."

Comic Books

Comic Strips

Candorville justifies this in a humorous fashion regarding its "fangs": "Copyright issues. Lawyers would get involved."

Fan Works

Films  Animation

The Incredibles, directed by Brad Bird. The word "superhero" is hardly used, but instead they're called "supers". Possibly because Marvel and DC claim a joint trademark (not copyright) on the former. Averted in Incredibles 2, which was made after Disney bought Marvel. Characters there mention "superheroes" as much as they do "supers".

The only uses of the word LEGO in The LEGO Movie are in the title and on the studs of the actual pieces the world is built from. Nobody uses terms like "minifig" or "minifigure", either.

The Secret of Kells never uses the word "bible" — it's really a Gospel Book — despite being about making one. The Book of Iona/Kells is just referred to as "the book" or a sacred text. Considering that Bible comes from the Greek for "Book", maybe its just a case of Translation Convention.

Films  Live-Action

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

The Creature Feature song "Aim For the Head " is based on the film Night of the Living Dead (1968), and as such uses the term "ghoul" instead of zombie.

" is based on the film Night of the Living Dead (1968), and as such uses the term "ghoul" instead of zombie. The zombies in Chiodos' "Those Who Slay Together Stay Together" are only ever referred to as "the infected".

Pinball

As with the television series, Stern Pinball's The Walking Dead refers to its undead hordes as "walkers".

In NBA, the Pinball word "Jackpot" is never used. Many have speculated that this was a requirement by the NBA to avoid accidentally associating basketball with gambling.

Tabletop Games

Video Games

Webcomics

Web Original

Web Videos

Western Animation

Aladdin: The Series had a character that controlled what were obviously some form of Undead, but the words undead and zombie were never mentioned. Instead, they were always called Mamluks, which rather than being some kind of mythological creature, simply means "slave" in Arabic. While they were enslaved zombies. Historically, the mamluks were the soldiers of slave origin used by Muslim rulers to fight their wars. They became a powerful warrior caste, and some did reach the level of sultan (including one named Ala'a ad-Din (Aladdin)). Therefore, it would be correct to call them mamluks, which has nothing to do with their status of being undead. Strangely enough, one of the original sources of Arabian Nights was written down in the second half of the 13th century in the Mamluk kingdoms of Syria and Egypt. However, the undead of Persia/Arabia were typically referred to as "ghuls", or "ghouls". Iago does refer to them as zombies in the episode "Black Sands": "Big blue zombie at twelve oclock!"

In The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XX" there is a 'muncher' outbreak started by eating infected hamburgers. Notably, the segment is mostly an extended parody of 28 Days Later, listed above. The Brazilian-Portuguese dub of that episode averted the trope and used the term 'zumbi' (zombie).

Played for Laughs in a Rugrats episode where Angelica convinces Chuckie he's going to turn into a rhinoceros. Tommy refuses to say the word and keeps saying "one of those things" instead.

In the Halloween episode of Bubble Guppies zombies are referred to as 'spooky monsters'. This is probably because the cartoon is aimed at preschoolers.

Real Life