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What if Klingons had been a one-shot?

Oh yeah, that was the other example of the running gag. I had a feeling there was one more I was forgetting.

You also had Spock attributing a famous Sherlock Holmes quote to "one of my ancestors."

(Yes, I rewatched The Undiscovered Country yesterday.)
 
Which can be taken to mean either that Amanda Grayson is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes or that she's a descendant of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Although it may well be a nod to an idea that cropped up often in '70s fandom, namely that Sherlock Holmes may have been a Vulcan.
 
Which can be taken to mean either that Amanda Grayson is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes or that she's a descendant of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Although it may well be a nod to an idea that cropped up often in '70s fandom, namely that Sherlock Holmes may have been a Vulcan.

Or that Spock was being a bit wry . . . and is just as big a Holmes fan as Nicholas Meyer! :)
 
The Vulcan proverb about Nixon could very well be one, borrowed from Earth history, that is taught to Vulcan youngsters. The origin doesn't matter in this context. The lesson is what is important. The joke is just a bonus.

Spock's remark could just be a reference to what he learned (and later relearned).
 
I think it probably came from Nicholas Meyer. He also had Khan attribute the proverb "Revenge is a dish best served cold" to the Klingons even though it's actually from a variety of Earth cultures and is probably best known from the book Les Liaisons Dangereuses. It seems to have been a running gag of Meyer's to have people attribute human sayings and literature to alien cultures.
It's a pretty common proverb in French. This line in TWOK is cool, but it's a bit weird considering Khan would be probably more aware about the francophone culture than the Klingon.

The gag of the Klingon Shakespeare is not absurd. Think about the European explorers in North America. Who's the boss? Leif Ericson? The Basque fishermen? John Cabot? Jacques Cartier?
Charlemagne? German or French? Chekov would say he was a great Russian Tsar!

Arne Darvin was probably not the first Klingon inflitrator. Maybe one of them returned on Qo'noS with some books.
 
Aside: This forum loves the word "trope." :lol:

This is why:

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

(I hope you didn't have any plans for the next few hours...)

I didn't, but I certainly won't waste those hours reading all that. :lol:

I just thought it was funny how many times that word pops up in posts. If it were me (and it is), I think I'd try to find other ways to say the same thing. But I'm a little unusual, as fans go. :)
 
But "trope" is the correct technical term for it. It's like "episode." It gets used all the time because there aren't a lot of other words for that particular concept.
 
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