Is anyone else bothered by the term "horsebirds" for chocobo?

I've seen it come up a few times now, and it really bothers me. I get that, from our perspective, it makes sense - they're big birds that people ride like we do horses. But on Hydaelyn, chocobos are the baseline for mounts; not horses. To most people in Eorzea, horses are a rarity. There's the tribes of the Steppe over in the Far East that regularly use horses, there's Sleipnir, and there are PvP mounts that are horses, but your average joe is going to be far more familiar with a chocobo. Why would they call them horsebirds?

Pay attention to who is using it. I am pretty sure it's all coming from the Doman characters who are more familiar with horses.

Because chocobos are only native to Eorzea and are hardly seen on Othard (at least, not in Doma or the Steppe anyway), so Domans would only have horses as a frame of reference when confronted with a giant bird that people are using for labour and transportation in Eorzea the same way they use horses (much like in the real world how early cars were called 'horseless carriages', or early trains were called 'the iron horse').

It's also a meta thing referencing a notorious incident during 1.0's development where a planned (but never released) Chinese translation/localization of 1.0 was leaked and among other things, apparently had crudely translated chocobo as 'horsebird', leading to plenty of memes and misguided vitriol that the game supposedly was being outsourced to Chinese developers (it was false of course).

Hence like much of ARR, Domans calling chocobos 'horsebirds' could therefore be considered yet another tongue-firmly-in-cheek reference to FFXIV's sordid past.

It isn't just Domans, though. Someone in Ishgard referred to them as horsebirds. Pretty sure someone in Gridania or Limsa has too.

Didn't know it was a meta thing though, so I guess I can look past it for the joke.

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Originally Posted by Jzarah

It isn't just Domans, though. Someone in Ishgard referred to them as horsebirds.

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I blame Haurchefant and his horse obsession (see, Heavensturn 2014.)

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

I blame Haurchefant and his horse obsession (see, Heavensturn 2014.)

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RIP event quest chains.

Makes sense for Doman characters, someone in Ishgard using the term is kind of odd though, the Chocobo Forest is right next to Coerthas even.

Do you remember where they were called "horsebirds" in Ishgard? It seems unlikely there.

I like how the answer to the question in the topic name is 'yes, other people are bothered by it, but that's the point'. It's specifically being used because it's an awkward and ugly name for a thing we already have a perfectly good word for.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Do you remember where they were called "horsebirds" in Ishgard? It seems unlikely there.

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Here are all instances of the word horsebird when searching Gamer Escape, and every single time the word is said by a Doman. I don't know how exhaustive Gamer Escape is when it comes to random NPC dialogue outside of quests, but all the instances pulled up in the search were either MSQ, NIN Job Quests, Heavensturn, or a mount that references Heavensturn.

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Originally Posted by Beddict

Here are all instances of the word horsebird

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That is very interesting.
Thanks for the info.