Do you speak future?

[Christopher]

However, in describing what we can infer was an encounter with a particularly desirable female, he said "Yeah, she was nova, that one."

I'm pretty sure it was "She was a nova, that one," and the Blish adaptation agrees. (It was in Star Trek 8, by which time the adaptations were pretty verbatim.) It makes more sense that it would be used as a noun than an adjective.

It does sound a little anachronistic to me, though, since the usage of "nova" has shifted over time. It used to be used synonymously with "supernova," and fiction continued that practice far longer than scientists did, but these days I hear "supernova" a lot more often than "nova" (even though classical novae occur far more frequently than supernovae). For that matter, if "supernova" had come to be slang for an especially hot person of one's preferred gender, that would make "she was a nova" rather faint praise in comparison.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I suppose you could re-interpret it as shortened slang - " 'nova", drop the "super-" over time.

 

[Tallguy]

I'm pretty sure it was "She was a nova, that one," and the Blish adaptation agrees. (It was in Star Trek 8, by which time the adaptations were pretty verbatim.) It makes more sense that it would be used as a noun than an adjective.

It does sound a little anachronistic to me, though, since the usage of "nova" has shifted over time. It used to be used synonymously with "supernova," and fiction continued that practice far longer than scientists did, but these days I hear "supernova" a lot more often than "nova" (even though classical novae occur far more frequently than supernovae). For that matter, if "supernova" had come to be slang for an especially hot person of one's preferred gender, that would make "she was a nova" rather faint praise in comparison.

Is this like "one small step for A man" but Neil is from Ohio so we can't hear it? "One step for-uh man?"

"Nova" is clearly "really something" (or possibly "crazy"). He could have said "She was really zoogbah, that one". Which, I think, is the only time that TOS used made up slang, wasn't it? (NO I'm not counting the Space Hippies.)

I think someone like @Maurice should educate us in what ways did TOS NOT sound like, say, The Dick van Dyke Show". Heck, how slangy was The Munsters or The Addams Family when it wasn't intentionally sending up then-modern slang?

If TNG (and Berman era in general) sounded more stilted than other contemporary shows then it was only because it was trying to sound like TOS.

 

[Christopher]

Is this like "one small step for A man" but Neil is from Ohio so we can't hear it? "One step for-uh man?"

I'm from Ohio myself, and I don't think that has anything to do with it. Gary Lockwood is from Los Angeles.

I just checked the scene courtesy of Paramount+, and it does sound like "She was nova," but it's more like "She was n-ova," not unlike how one might pronounce "She was an ova." So I think it was meant to be "She was a nova," but Lockwood kind of slurred it together.

"Nova" is clearly "really something" (or possibly "crazy"). He could have said "She was really zoogbah, that one". Which, I think, is the only time that TOS used made up slang, wasn't it? (NO I'm not counting the Space Hippies.)

As I said, it was probably meant to be a noun, not an adjective. As in, she was super-hot and intense, like an exploding star. Not slang so much as a metaphor, like "She was a firecracker," only much bigger.

 

[FredH]

I actually kind of liked when Riker’s father told him to “Lower your shields”, i.e. stop keeping a defensive emotional wall between them. That seemed a reasonable expression to come out of common technology, and I’m kind of sorry it was never used again, as far as I can recall.

 

[Tallguy]

Just listened. There's no pause. It's just "She was nova that one."

 

[Christopher]

Just listened. There's no pause. It's just "She was nova that one."

I already addressed that. And the fact that Blish's adaptation used "a nova" suggests that's how it was scripted. Besides, it is elementary that "nova" is a noun. No point in overcomplicating the obvious.

 

[Maurice]

"Nova" is clearly "really something" (or possibly "crazy"). He could have said "She was really zoogbah, that one". Which, I think, is the only time that TOS used made up slang, wasn't it? (NO I'm not counting the Space Hippies.)

Mitchell's lines in the final draft script are "A walking refrigerator," and "She was nova, that one." Obviously, they filmed the first differently.

ASIDE: In one marked up draft of the WNMHGB script, after making himself "dead" for 22 seconds, Mitchell says, "I won't add that to my repertoire. For a second there, I almost lost control." A few lines later, when he becomes aware Dehner is holding his hand, he says, "Hang on, baby. For a while. I'm scared." And a bit after that asks, "What's happening to me?"

I think someone like @Maurice should educate us in what ways did TOS NOT sound like, say, The Dick van Dyke Show". Heck, how slangy was The Munsters or The Addams Family when it wasn't intentionally sending up then-modern slang?

I dunno that I'm qualified to educate anyone on that. I'm not a speech expert and can only offer observations about media portrayals, but I can make some comments that you may or may not agree with.

From the linguistics podcasts I listened to and books I've read, I think it's fair to say—in general—in polite company, people spoke more formally in up through the early to mid 60s. Star Trek's writers, by and large, weren't part of youth culture, and they certainly weren't writing in the vernacular of that. Even Laugh-In occasionally sounded like middle-aged people writing what they thought the kids sounded like. I don't have data to back this up, but, to my ear, it was at the end of the 60s and in the 70s where US network TV really loosened up and tried to go for more slangy speech, especially in comedy programs, possibly as networks tried to attract the 18-to-34 and 35-to-49 age groups that most appealed to sponsors because they spend more on consumer products than other groups (a factor in the CBS "rural purge").

Roddenberry didn't like the saluting and other aspects of the military (he didn't like piping in and "captain on the bridge," stuff, for instance), so that formality was out, but as he also saw the starship crew characters as professionals akin to astronauts, he was possibly reacting to the public perception of how they were seen by the media in his depiction of their manner of speaking.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I already addressed that. And the fact that Blish's adaptation used "a nova" suggests that's how it was scripted. Besides, it is elementary that "nova" is a noun. No point in overcomplicating the obvious.

Hardly. Nova appears just as likely if not more likely to be an adjective in the future slang.

First of all, as we use it today, nova is a shortening of the Latin nova stella, meaning new star, in which nova is the feminine nominative singular form of the adjective novus, meaning new.

Secondly, in the future slang, given all of the other dialog in the episode that establishes an enormous baseline compatible with proper English, without an article (indefinite or otherwise) in the context that it has as a subject complement under a linking verb, nova is more likely grammatically an adjective than a noun.

For example, if the meaning is intended to be bright or hot, well, in English those are adjectives. Ditto (if not especially) if the meaning is synonymous with novel.

 

[Christopher]

Mitchell's lines in the final draft script are "A walking refrigerator," and "She was nova, that one." Obviously, they filmed the first differently.

Hmm, okay, I was wrong, then. Blish (or his copyeditor) must have figured it was a typo and "fixed" it.

Using "nova" as an adjective would qualify as slang after all. Although in Latin, it was an adjective to begin with, of course; the noun "nova" for an exploding or erupting star is derived from Tycho Brahe's coinage stella nova, "new star." Taken literally, Mitchell would just have been saying "She was new, that one." Which I sincerely hope is not what he meant.

Alternatively, he could have been saying "She was lox cured with a mild brine and cold-smoked," but that would raise many more questions...

 

[Set Harth]

Maybe by nova he meant "does not go"

 

[Ronald Held]

How would Spock learn such vernacular ancient expressions?

 

[Nerys Myk]

How would Spock learn such vernacular ancient expressions?

He has human relatives and reads.

As for "nova" I've always assumed it meant "hot" as in very attractive.

 

[Maurice]

Hmm, okay, I was wrong, then. Blish (or his copyeditor) must have figured it was a typo and "fixed" it.

Blish was not married to the source materials and changed things when he felt like it. Commodore Decker's first name, for instance.

As for "nova" I've always assumed it meant "hot" as in very attractive.

Hotheaded. Explosive. Flares up. Who knows?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

The same way someone might say, "she's fire/electric/dynamite."

 

[Christopher]

Blish was not married to the source materials and changed things when we felt like it.

Well, yes and no. As I said, that was mainly true of the earlier volumes, and the later adaptations like this one were much more accurate to the aired episodes. However, skimming through the "Where No Man..." adaptation, it's definitely much, much closer to the episode than it probably would've been in an earlier volume (even capturing quirks like "materializer" instead of "transporter"), but the dialogue isn't 100% verbatim.

The same way someone might say, "she's fire/electric/dynamite."

Or "she was a blast." Consider the context: Kirk joked that he'd been worried about Mitchell ever since his night with the "nova" woman on Deneb IV, and Mitchell said there were "[n]ot nearly as many aftereffects this time." Which implies it was a wild night of debauched overindulgence that took a lot out of him, even more than getting zapped by a cosmic energy barrier (or at least he was pretending that it was to reassure Kirk). So she was like a nova in the sense of being hot, intense, explosive, and dangerous to be close to.

Although the onscreen graphic of Mitchell's service record, barely glimpsed in the episode, says that the natives of Deneb IV are telepathic and Mitchell carried on long mental conversations with them, proving his esper ability. So perhaps it wasn't the implied night of debauchery but just a really intense telepathic communication that took a lot out of him. Or maybe it was both, and the report just sanitized it.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

How would Spock learn such vernacular ancient expressions?

Probably after confirming their definitions with his cousin Carl.

 

[Maurice]

re Blish's faithfulness to the source material, I defer to my work-husband:

Blish wrote in his diary that he considered the Star Trek books to be "hacking." He did not write them beyond the sixth book--Judith Blish and her mother were the largely uncredited authors after that. His biographer (David Ketterer) does not pin this on health issues but on Blish's disdain for the material.
[…]
Dorothy Fontana, incidentally, wrote a memo when she was on staff complaining about adaptations not being faithful to the shooting scripts.

 

[Set Harth]

Blish was not married to the source materials and changed things when we felt like it.

We?

 

[Christopher]

Yeah, I knew they were ghosted after a certain point, but I forgot how much or when it started. So the "Where No Man" adaptation was by J.A. Lawrence and/or her mother.