How Star Trek has enriched the English language

Q. 'Tell me, Kirk, what is this thing called love '

A. And, more often than not, he told them - the ladies that is - enfolding them in his manly embrace until they went limp with pleasure. But by the end of the episode they were usually dead.

�

This is not, as far as we can tell, a direct quotation from any episode, but it could be, and it shows the degree to which the programme has entered the collective consciousness, that we would not question the accuracy of the quote, because we can all hear someone saying it.

�

Q. And a quick overview of the various series

A. It all began in the mid-1960s with a pilot episode called 'The Cage', the brainchild of the producer, the late Gene Roddenberry. Kirk was nowhere to be seen, and the only familiar face on the crew was Leonard Nimoy as Spock.

�

The pilot was not a great success, but, even so, on 8 September 1966 the first episode of series one, 'The Man Trap' - with Kirk, Scotty, Bones, Uhura, Chekhov, Sulu et al. all on board - was shown. Deemed a failure by network bosses, the last show went out on 6 March 1969, and the rest, as they say is history. Shown all over the world - it never seemed to be off the TV in the UK - the series gained momentum throughout the 1970s and became a global phenomenon.

�

In 1979 Star Trek: The Movie brought our heroes back, and they went on to fight several more missions on celluloid.

�

It wasn't until nearly 20 years after the demise of the series, however, that, cashing in on the renewed interest in the 'voyages of the starship Enterprise' engendered by the films, a new show was made (not including the patchy cartoon series of 1973-4). Star Trek: The Next Generation ran from 1987 to 1994, and since then the floodgates have opened, with Deep Space 9 (1993-9), Voyager (1995-2001) and now Enterprise, which began in 2001.

�

Q. So, 'to boldly go where no man has gone before'

A. The phrase that caused a generation of English teachers to collectively raise their eyebrows in horror, to boldly split an infinitive was almost an act of linguistic sedition. In fact, in English, it really makes no difference to the meaning, and, in truth, in this example 'boldly to go' or 'to go boldly' would just not have had the same ring. (Not that theanswerbank would encourage the use of sloppy English, but it is an archaism with no grammatical reasoning.)

�

More interesting is the change that was made by 1987. In the preamble to episodes of The Next Generation we are told that their mission was 'to boldly go where no ONE has gone before', a nod to the advance in sexual politics that had taken place in the intervening decades. They still split the infinitive, though.

�

Q. What else

A.

'She's breaking up, I cannae hold her for much longer' - a familiar cry from the engine room

'It's illogical, Captain' - doesn't need any explanation

'Aye, aye, Cyepten' - the original series predicted that Russians would be serving happily alongside Americans on the USS Enterprise - capitalism having triumphed, of course

Mind meld - a meeting of minds

�

Q. What about modern inventions using Trekkie names

A.

Phaser - one scientist has developed a laser that can transmit an electronic beam capable of stunning or even killing a human being; and yes, it's called a phaser

Cloaking device - the process by which aircraft can be hidden from radar, a term originally used in Star Trek

Warp drive - as yet not invented, but if it, or anything like it, ever is, you can bet this will be strong contender for the name

�

Q. How about, 'Beam me up, Scotty'

A. Star Trek's very own 'Play it again, Sam', no-one actually ever said this. But, who cares

�

Q. Is it true that you can now learn Klingon

You sure can, so tachDaq magham (we'll meet in the bar) to discuss it. Here are a couple of sites relating to the language:

http://www.kli.org/

http://www.klingon.org/menu.html (the Klingon Imperial Diplomatic Corps - really)

http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/fonts/klingon.html�(for downloading Klingon fonts)

�

For more than you ever wanted to know about the various Star Treks go to http://www.startrek.com/

�

For more on Phrases & Sayings click here

�

By Simon Smith