Non-Trekkie Trekkie
Captain
What is the deal here?? Why is Trek so overwhelmed with different names for us and earth? Hell, the Vulcans have to share the same name between themselves and their home world. Why do we have so many options?
Earth, Earthlings, Terrans, Sol, Humans...MAKE UP YOUR MINDS!!!
- Thread starter Non-Trekkie Trekkie
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What is the deal here?? Why is Trek so overwhelmed with different names for us and earth? Hell, the Vulcans have to share the same name between themselves and their home world. Why do we have so many options?
I always felt they should have a specific name, themselves. Seeing how they come from Earth, Earthlings would be appropriate.
But thats one of those things that Trek royally screwed up...
But thats one of those things that Trek royally screwed up...
What's with all the threads on this subject lately? Isn't the one (or two, or three, or five, or ten or however many there are) enough? It seems like an odd thing to be obsessing over.
I don't recall Sol ever actually being used in Star Trek. You got that from other sci-fi.
Outside of mirror universe episodes, Terran is pretty rare. Again, other sci-fi.
Earthlings not only sounds lame, but humans of the Trek universe would likely consider it borderline derogatory. Like calling a grown man "boy". Besides, it hasn't really been used since the TOS days.
In Star Trek, at least for the last twenty years it's been pretty consistently "humans" from "Earth". Seems they have made up their minds.
I don't recall Sol ever actually being used in Star Trek. You got that from other sci-fi.
Outside of mirror universe episodes, Terran is pretty rare. Again, other sci-fi.
Earthlings not only sounds lame, but humans of the Trek universe would likely consider it borderline derogatory. Like calling a grown man "boy". Besides, it hasn't really been used since the TOS days.
In Star Trek, at least for the last twenty years it's been pretty consistently "humans" from "Earth". Seems they have made up their minds.
What is the deal here?? Why is Trek so overwhelmed with different names for us and earth? Hell, the Vulcans have to share the same name between themselves and their home world. Why do we have so many options?
Think that might have something to do with the fact that those are all real terms?
Non-Trekkie Trekkie
Captain
Um...No. Check the Trek Star Charts.
Um...No. Check Voyager. Tom Paris telling Captain Jane that in his Captain Proton Holodeck Universe it's "Earthling, not Terran"...Amongst others.
Um...No. See above and "Lame" is in the eye of the beholder.
Um...No. I don't watch other Sci-Fi. I didn't just dream all this up.
Earthling reminds me of early sci fi too much. Terran sounds a bit better, imo. TOS we had Earthers said by Klingons (Trouble with Tribbles, maybe?). Basically, the reason there's so many names is no one can think of a name besides humans (and, since they like using Human to describe all humanoids on occassion, they like having alternative names for aliens to call us).
How about Earthy??
While not used for the planet per se, in Best of Both Worlds, Worf reports that the Borg are heading for Sector 001, the Sol System.
And then Riker, realizing that the common viewer would cock their heads back a little at the name, clarifies to the screen, "Earth."
One of my favorite 'Riker Clarifications' out there. Another one, from First Contact:
"They're opening a temporal vortex!"
"Time-Travel."
I prefer Solarians from Sol III. And to other aliens it would make more sense, than Human, a name that essentially means, I'm a man of the physical world/earth, which may be too generic a term in the context of other sapient species.
My second choice is Earthers, a hell of a lot better than Earthlings.
What we call ourselves may not be what aliens call us. In China I'm most frequently called "Laowai", or Foreigner. They have no terms for foreign national, expatriate, expat, foreign resident or even visitor, apparently. It is a discriminatory term--as we don't refer to ourselves as foreign, since we know other contexts besides "Han majority"--and 99-100% of the people I talk to see nothing at all wrong with it, as other concepts simply are not allowed for in the language. (Nothing wrong, that is, unless one were to call them the foreigner)!
Yet even when in other countries, the Chinese will refer to the locals as "foreigners" and themselves as Zhongguoren, or People of the Middle Kingdom; "middle" here refers to "beneath the godly, but above all other places on Earth."
I would that our collective nomenclature be a tad less...ethnocentric.
I think the civilized thing to do would be to refer to other races and species in the names they have chosen for themselves (if possible), rather than saddle them with whatever's convenient for us. Certainly I would prefer to be called "expat" or "foreign national/resident" in most cases, or--heaven forfend, United States American--as the simplistic "foreigner" gets pretty tiresome every day. Especially as a basis for discrimination. Um, there are more than two regions in the world.
human c.1250, from M.Fr. humain "of or belonging to man," from L. humanus, probably related to homo (gen. hominis) "man," and to humus "earth," on notion of "earthly beings," as opposed to the gods (cf. Heb. adam "man," from adamah "ground"). Cognate with O.Lith. zmuo (acc. zmuni) "man, male person." Displaced its O.E. cognate guma (from P.Gmc. *guman-) which survives only in disguise in bridegroom. First record of humankind is from 1645. Humanoid (1918) is a hybrid of L. humanus and Gk. -oeides "like," from eidos "form, shape" (see -oid).
My second choice is Earthers, a hell of a lot better than Earthlings.
What we call ourselves may not be what aliens call us. In China I'm most frequently called "Laowai", or Foreigner. They have no terms for foreign national, expatriate, expat, foreign resident or even visitor, apparently. It is a discriminatory term--as we don't refer to ourselves as foreign, since we know other contexts besides "Han majority"--and 99-100% of the people I talk to see nothing at all wrong with it, as other concepts simply are not allowed for in the language. (Nothing wrong, that is, unless one were to call them the foreigner)!
Yet even when in other countries, the Chinese will refer to the locals as "foreigners" and themselves as Zhongguoren, or People of the Middle Kingdom; "middle" here refers to "beneath the godly, but above all other places on Earth."
I would that our collective nomenclature be a tad less...ethnocentric.
I think the civilized thing to do would be to refer to other races and species in the names they have chosen for themselves (if possible), rather than saddle them with whatever's convenient for us. Certainly I would prefer to be called "expat" or "foreign national/resident" in most cases, or--heaven forfend, United States American--as the simplistic "foreigner" gets pretty tiresome every day. Especially as a basis for discrimination. Um, there are more than two regions in the world.
human c.1250, from M.Fr. humain "of or belonging to man," from L. humanus, probably related to homo (gen. hominis) "man," and to humus "earth," on notion of "earthly beings," as opposed to the gods (cf. Heb. adam "man," from adamah "ground"). Cognate with O.Lith. zmuo (acc. zmuni) "man, male person." Displaced its O.E. cognate guma (from P.Gmc. *guman-) which survives only in disguise in bridegroom. First record of humankind is from 1645. Humanoid (1918) is a hybrid of L. humanus and Gk. -oeides "like," from eidos "form, shape" (see -oid).
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What is the deal here?? Why is Trek so overwhelmed with different names for us and earth? Hell, the Vulcans have to share the same name between themselves and their home world. Why do we have so many options?
You forgot "Earthers," as used by Kang in the TOS episode "The Trouble With Tribbles."
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Hey, that's not too bad, but I think "Solaran" rolls off the tongue a bit more effortlessly.
Solaran: very cool!
Worf said they were heading for the Terran system, not the Sol system.
My mistake, but it does reinforce two points:
1. the term 'Terran' was indeed used outside of the Mirror universe
2. Riker *still* used his Riker Clarification
On the other hand, "solarian" conjures up images of people with small dark swimming goggles walking out of tanning salons with very bad tans that don't take the bikini lines into account.
But I like "solaran".
My earlier joke/Futurama reference aside, I prefer the demonym Terran. In the Wing Commander series, every human referred to themselves as Terrans, which they probably chose as a universal name for themselves after finally uniting. The only weird thing is they still refer to Earth as Earth, rather than Terra.
You forgot "Earthers," as used by Kang in the TOS episode "The Trouble With Tribbles."
BZZZT. Kang was in "Day of Dove".
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