Doohan's Mustache

[EnriqueH]

Sounds too much like a Data moment....

Yeah, but this would've taken place in the 60s.

Besides, everyone knows Data is a Spock clone anyway.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^But you're coming up with the idea 25 years after Data did pretty much did the same thing. Emulating human behavior to fit in better wasn't Spock's thing.

(Except possibly for pilot-era Spock, or at least that's my head canon for his excitability and yelliness.)

 

[Maurice]

I'm not crazy about the term, either, but it shows there's some desire for something that covers beards, mustaches, beard-mustache combo, sideburns etc. without getting into specifics. There's no single word that can be used that way, so we're left with "facial hair."

Actually, if you told a man with a full beard he had to shave his beard, do you think most men would not consider the mustache part and parcel of that order... the wiseacres aside? Just curious.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'm not crazy about the term, either, but it shows there's some desire for something that covers beards, mustaches, beard-mustache combo, sideburns etc. without getting into specifics. There's no single word that can be used that way, so we're left with "facial hair."

Actually, if you told a man with a full beard he had to shave his beard, do you think most men would not consider the mustache part and parcel of that order... the wiseacres aside? Just curious.

I think if someone left his mustache contrary to intent, the expected reiteration would be something like, "Shave it all off."

 

[Nebusj]

I'm not crazy about the term, either, but it shows there's some desire for something that covers beards, mustaches, beard-mustache combo, sideburns etc. without getting into specifics. There's no single word that can be used that way, so we're left with "facial hair."

Actually, if you told a man with a full beard he had to shave his beard, do you think most men would not consider the mustache part and parcel of that order... the wiseacres aside? Just curious.

I wouldn't, barring some specific reason, e.g., ``it cannot be guaranteed that your gas mask will make the necessary seal with your skin if it has to fit over facial hair''. My mustache is not part of my beard; they're separate things.

 

[J.T.B.]

Actually, if you told a man with a full beard he had to shave his beard, do you think most men would not consider the mustache part and parcel of that order... the wiseacres aside? Just curious.

I think people anticipate that someone would take it quite literally, so they look for a term that is as succinct as possible but at the same time with as little room for misinterpretation as possible.

 

[eyeresist]

I like Scotty's moustache. It seems appropriate for an engineer, and gives him a nice fatherly look. But I guess it might be jarring after years watching TOS.

It's easier to say "facial hair" than it is to say "mustaches, beards, goatees, etc." It was mentioned in reference to all facial hair (er...mustaches, beards, goatees, etc.) in the military and likewise in Starfleet.

I have no problem with the term. But I do wonder at what point sideburns stop being included as part of cranial hair (there's a euphemism for ya) and officially become "facial"?

Are military personnel currently serving allowed to have facial hair?

Yes, within the regulations.

No Hitler 'taches.

 

[Maurice]

I have no problem with the term. But I do wonder at what point sideburns stop being included as part of cranial hair (there's a euphemism for ya) and officially become "facial"?.

I think the easy distinction is the hairline a guy has before puberty is "hair" and everything that grows on the face after that is "term of your choice".

 

[Green Shirt]

Sounds too much like a Data moment....

Now that was one gawd awful beard.

 

[inflatabledalek]

Shantner's moustache in his second Columbo episode is one of the most extrodinary things you will ever see. Over the course of the episode it grows and shrinks and changes colour and once you notice it doing that it becomes impossible to pay attention to anything else (there's also one scene where Peter Falk's hair is dyed much much darker than it is in the rest of the movie, the whole thing feels as if- for whatever reason- they filmed some of it a while after the bulk had been shot).

 

[Ssosmcin]

I always thought Doohan looked either younger in TMP than in the original series, or the same age.

 

[Lance]

"Beard", generally speaking, means, all of the hair on the lower part of the face, except maybe the stache. "Goatee", "muttonchops", etc. are styles created by shaving off parts of the beard. You're still shaving off your beard if you shave off your goatee, just as you're shaving off your hair when you shave off a mohawk.

I know people who have seriously argued that they "don't have a beard", simply because what they do have is a 'Van Dyke' or some other neatly trimmed goatee.

Sometimes, there are moments in life when you just gotta grab someone by the shirt collar, stare into their eyes, smile broadly at them, and tell them "nah mate, you've got a BEARD".

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I think Doohan in TOS cut quite an imposing figure physically and he was very believeable as a guy you didn't screw with in those instances when he took command of the Enterprise.

In the film when they put him in the engineering suit and his mustache he just looked like a kind of flustered middle age guy who hated his job and wanted to buy a ferrarri and find a 22 year old hardbody with big tits.

Didn't Doohan actually marry a 18 year old fan a couple of years earlier?

Well, I do recall he was introduced to a 17-year-old fan and married her not too long after. (She could have been 18 then).

Shantner's moustache in his second Columbo episode is one of the most extrodinary things you will ever see. Over the course of the episode it grows and shrinks and changes colour and once you notice it doing that it becomes impossible to pay attention to anything else (there's also one scene where Peter Falk's hair is dyed much much darker than it is in the rest of the movie, the whole thing feels as if- for whatever reason- they filmed some of it a while after the bulk had been shot).

Must have been a sci-fi episode...

***

On another note:
Someone mentioned Lt. Kyle having a mustache in TAS, but he would eventually be seen with one in TWOK as well.

 

[FormerLurker]

And a goatee.

 

[Maurice]

Beard styles terms are a mess. The modern vernacular in the U.S. is to use terms rather loosely, so what a lot of people call a "goatee" a lot of other people call a "van dyke" and these so-called goatees actually cover a lot of different styles, making it tough to be specific with your barber. There are so many modern charts with confused names that it's hard to parse the original terms without doing some digging. "Van Dyke" style generally refers to something that ends in a point, so, sans that point, a lot of what people call "van dyke" is really a goatee with mustache (aka a "french goatee"). "Goatee" probably originally meant a chin beard which hangs below the chin, like on a goat's.

 

[Lance]

I think that all sounds just about right, Maurice.

The terminology has definitely become muddied in more recent years.

I guess that's the price we pay for the ability to be individuals.

 

[Maurice]

I don't see how muddling distinct terms into generic umbrella ones has much to do with individuality.

 

[Lance]

True.

 

[eyeresist]

I am angry about the terminology for facial hair!!!!!!

 

[bbailey861]

I am angry about the terminology for facial hair!!!!!!

Not me. I've had a moustache for years, worn a goatee on occasion, and had a full beard only once - but I've never found offence in the words used to describe facial hair. What angers you?