Did Spock ever speak with a contraction?

[Timo]

Data failing to "master" things is a recurring motif in TNG, and usually merely denotes Data not understanding his own mastery. "Offspring" by no means reduced the frequency of Data using contractions...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Corylea]

His second line in "The Cage".

SPOCK: It can't be the screen then.

Spoken with a curious British accent that he never uses again...

They originally thought that Spock had learned English as a foreign language, probably from tapes that had a British accent. Nimoy tried out the British accent at Roddenberry's request, but they didn't like the way it turned out, so he dropped it.

Later, when Dorothy Fontana gave Spock an ambassador father and a schoolteacher mother, it became probable that he'd grown up bilingual, so it was good that they'd already decided to have him drop the "foreign" accent.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ But the weird thing about that Brit voice is that Spock only uses it for ONE WORD. When he says his first line - "Check the circuit" - it's not like that.

 

[JRoss]

It would make logical sense to speak with contractions, since it takes less time to say them.

 

[Commishsleer]

My favorite is near the end of We'll Always have Paris, Data yells "It's me!"

At the conclusion of "Datalore", one of the androids has been defenestrated and the other survives. Which one is which? Well, the one left behind says "I'm fine".

It doesn't seem as if Spiner or his directors ever really paid any attention to the use of contractions or lack thereof. All that mattered was that Data sound stilted in his speech patterns, and avoiding contractions was one way of accomplishing that. But not something anyone would consistently have aimed at.

Timo Saloniemi

If Data was the perfectly blended android like those in the Alien movies then we would all forget that he was supposed to be an android and regard him as human (as the actor really is).

It would be easy for the engineering team on the Enterprise to give Data more realistic eyes and pallor. Data himself did it with Lal.

My own in-universe explanation for Data's 'imperfections' are that 'that was how Data was made and why should he change to suit the people around him'.
Obviously he (like Spock) knows about contractions/idioms but why should they use them?
Do they need to turn into 'humans' to garner the respect of their colleagues.

 

[mos6507]

Not speaking in contractions is just a well-worn writing convention meant to make a character sound "exotic". The most well-known example I can think of outside of Trek is Jeannie in I Dream of Jeannie.

 

[indranee]

I read somewhere that since English was a second language for Spock, it was intended for the character to speak it formally.

His mother was a native English speaker and he was reared by her so, technically, English couldn't have been his SECOND language. I mean, it was his "mother tongue."

 

[Turtletrekker]

Twelve years.

 

[Tosk]

And replying to someone who hasn't posted in a decade.

 

[indranee]

I was googling "why did Tuvok use contractions" tonight and it led me back to my old hunting grounds

 

[1001001]

Okay, closing this one.