Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character?

[Andrew Harris]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Indeed, Shakespeare coined or codified more of the vocabulary of Modern English than any other single writer (although the King James Bible was no doubt highly influential too).

Yeah, but wasn't the King James Bible using outdated language, even for its own time? I'm not saying it was, just that I recall.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Yeah, it did do that deliberately to some extent. But I figure that the KJV was probably the main book used to teach literacy to a lot of English-speaking people in the 17th century or so, thus it stands to reason that it would've been pretty influential.

In fact, the KJV was deliberately given a very limited and basic vocabulary, only about 5000 words aside from proper names, IIRC, so that it would be accessible to people without a formal education. So on second thought, maybe it didn't contribute that much. Which is an interesting contrast with Shakespeare, whose works have the largest vocabulary of any single English author's ouvre.

 

[KRAD]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Which is an interesting contrast with Shakespeare, whose works have the largest vocabulary of any single English author's ouvre.

It's spelled "oeuvre." It's French.




("Now his oeuvre's in the Louvre, and he's Paul Cezanne....")

 

[Christopher]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

I knew that... Oeups.

 

[Andrew Harris]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

("Now his oeuvre's in the Louvre, and he's Paul Cezanne....")

Oh, wow. There's like three levels of irony there. Well done, Keith.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

As I posted above, language is fluid, but linguistic historians (or whatever the name du jour is) like categories. Early Modern English is a misnomer, and used primarily to teach people about the transition, but it has no place in the real world.

But you agree that there was a transition, that the language of Shakespeare was a part of the evolution of the language we know as Modern English. Indeed, Shakespeare coined or codified more of the vocabulary of Modern English than any other single writer (although the King James Bible was no doubt highly influential too). Granted the obvious fact that language is fluid and categories inexact conveniences, I stand by the assertion that if you have to use a category label, "Modern English" is more appropriate for Shakespeare than "Middle English."

I don't like labels for transitional things like that, but I suppose you have me there.

Now, about Jellico being a jerk???

Anyone???

 

[TGTheodore]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

^ You weren't here to remind folks how wrong they were about everything.

Threads in Treklit ebb and flow like the Ganges.

And sometimes it becomes Ganges grene.

--Ted

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

And sometimes it becomes Ganges grene.

Just this week I saw an archived episode of a b/w Aussie kids' TV show from 1965 (and I hadn't seen "The Magic Circle Club" since '65) and a female bear was having a bizarre argument with a wooden bird puppet about the Japanese china she'd just bought, accusing him that his lines were Double Dutch and therefore all Greek to her. Hilarious, but I wonder if I was laughing as hard at that scene in 1965 when I was six?

 

[KRAD]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Oh, wow. There's like three levels of irony there. Well done, Keith.

Why I Love iTunes, Part 97: I hadn't actually thought about the song in question for ages (it's called "Paul Cezanne," which has been performed by many folks over the years, among them the Washington Squares and Five Chinese Brothers, and the chorus goes "Cezanne, Cezanne / The father of cubism"), but after writing that post, I went to iTunes and downloaded it.

Living in the 21st century is just cool....

 

[Andrew Harris]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Oh, wow. There's like three levels of irony there. Well done, Keith.

Why I Love iTunes, Part 97: I hadn't actually thought about the song in question for ages (it's called "Paul Cezanne," which has been performed by many folks over the years, among them the Washington Squares and Five Chinese Brothers, and the chorus goes "Cezanne, Cezanne / The father of cubism"), but after writing that post, I went to iTunes and downloaded it.

Living in the 21st century is just cool....

Yeah, that's what I meant by "levels of irony". Five Chinese Brothers is also the name of that children's book from the '30s that's FILLED with the exact kind of racial stereotypes we've been talking about.

Damn. Now I have to go download that song too. I'm a huge Cezanne fan.

 

[Trent Roman]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

^ What a visionary! Painting ridged-forehead Klingons decades before TMP...

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Yeah, that's what I meant by "levels of irony". Five Chinese Brothers is also the name of that children's book from the '30s that's FILLED with the exact kind of racial stereotypes we've been talking about.

I checked The Five Chinese Brothers out of my school library when I was in first or second grade... and never returned it. Somehow, in each of the three elementary schools I went to, there was one book I was supposed to return but never did. It was TFCB for the first school, an assigned textbook on Cincinnati history for the second, and an assigned textbook called The Story of American Freedom for the third. I didn't deliberately steal them, they just somehow slipped through the cracks, got misplaced until it was too late.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

I checked The Five Chinese Brothers out of my school library when I was in first or second grade... and never returned it. Somehow, in each of the three elementary schools I went to, there was one book I was supposed to return but never did. It was TFCB for the first school, an assigned textbook on Cincinnati history for the second, and an assigned textbook called The Story of American Freedom for the third. I didn't deliberately steal them, they just somehow slipped through the cracks, got misplaced until it was too late.

I'm a school librarian, remember. Send me your fines now and I won't tell.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Do you take quatloos?

 

[BrotherBenny]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Do you take quatloos?

Three assorted books for one Cardassian lek

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Re: Have Star Trek Writers Ever Tried to Create an Unlikable Character

Do you take quatloos?

Three assorted books for one Cardassian lek

And what will you trade an authentic Cardassian lek for?