German expressions in recent Trek novels

[Stevil2001]

But that's just my point, it's not arbitrary when it comes to measurements, because they're different things. A kellicam is different from a kilometer is different from a mile. I mean, is it arbitrary to translate references to cubits in the Bible rather than converting them to feet or meters? Of course not, because it's a distinct unit. It has a different length than a foot or a meter.

Besides, one could argue that "kellicam" is the English word for the unit that's known as qelI'qam in Klingonese. In fact, that's exactly what Marc Okrand says in The Klingon Dictionary. Look up qelI'qam and it gives the English equivalent as "kellicam." However you spell or pronounce it, it's a distinct unit of a specific size. Substituting "kilometers" for "kellicams" would make as much sense as substituting "purple" for "blue."

But if none of your readers know what a kellicam is, all you've done is confuse them. And obviously you wouldn't do a one-to-one substitution of "kilometer" for kellicam. But you could approximate.

Or, you could take the Forged in Fire approach: "Koloth saw that the enemy ship was 17,000 kellicams away, or, as the Earthers would say, 32,743 kilometers."

 

[Defcon]

Or, you could take the Forged in Fire approach: "Koloth saw that the enemy ship was 17,000 kellicams away, or, as the Earthers would say, 32,743 kilometers."

Please don't, that was one of the weaker parts of Forged in Fire.

I even mentioned it in my review:

The characterizations are good for the most part, the only thing really bothering me was that the authors used phrases like “what the earthers called ...” when writing from a Klingon's point of view too often. I understand that this was used to translate Klingon terms, but the way and sheer number of times it was used - for example, in chapter seven - really hurts the characterization, because the reader could be led to believe that Koloth is overly fascinated with Earth, as every second thought he has is about what the humans call something.

 

[Marie1]

I liked seeing some German, (and not just expletives) but its also nice to know that everything isn't English, that all other languages haven't died...

My sentiments exactly, although I did not entirely enjoy it, I studied Deutsch at Secondary school and it's nice to read something in another language in a Trek book that I can understand.

Now if you writing folk could put the U in color the World in my eyes would be a brighter place

Seconded... maybe they cut back to save on ink?

For colour, honour... etc.

I know the US nixes the U's, but what if the writer isn't from the US? Would the Us be edited out?

 

[Christopher]

But if none of your readers know what a kellicam is, all you've done is confuse them.

Why? When Torg told Kruge, "Enemy closing on impulse power. Range, 5000 kellicams," it was perfectly clear from context that a kellicam was a unit of distance. When he then counted off "3000 kellicams" and "2000 kellicams," that reinforced his earlier statement that the Enterprise was drawing closer. I don't see anything confusing there. The viewer didn't have to know what the actual length of a kellicam was in order to understand what was going on there, any more than the viewer has to know the rest mass of a tetryon or what raktajino is made of.

 

[DimesDan]

I know the US nixes the U's, but what if the writer isn't from the US? Would the Us be edited out?

From what I've read, I'm sure they do as I noticed that in Uma McCormacks Hollow Men and also in James Swallows Terok Nor story that it was spelt color, but that's probably due to the American Market for Trek books (and most books in general) is far higher than over here in Blighty!!!

What just occured to me, of the English speaking nations of to globe, is it just Americans who omit the U in colour as well as having, say a Z in a word like specialise for example (if a zed is not even used in that word, I hope I'm making sense) or do Canadians, Australians and Kiwi's etc do that as well?

 

[Rosalind]

But if none of your readers know what a kellicam is, all you've done is confuse them.

Why? When Torg told Kruge, "Enemy closing on impulse power. Range, 5000 kellicams," it was perfectly clear from context that a kellicam was a unit of distance. When he then counted off "3000 kellicams" and "2000 kellicams," that reinforced his earlier statement that the Enterprise was drawing closer. I don't see anything confusing there. The viewer didn't have to know what the actual length of a kellicam was in order to understand what was going on there, any more than the viewer has to know the rest mass of a tetryon or what raktajino is made of.

I think a better example would be "parsec", I doubt most people know what it means when the characters say "the closest system is blah, blah, 4.3 parsecs away", but I don't see people complaining about it because it's a real astronomical distance.

I think this is just a personal preference, some people feel uncomfortable if they don't know what some unit means in the units they're familiar with, other people can just accept it's a distance on the order of kilometres for example, and leave it as it is.

What just occured to me, of the English speaking nations of to globe, is it just Americans who omit the U in colour as well as having, say a Z in a word like specialise for example (if a zed is not even used in that word, I hope I'm making sense) or do Canadians, Australians and Kiwi's etc do that as well?

we aussies (and the kiwis too) leave the U's in our spelling, and it's Aluminium!

The problem, actually, is that the English didn't have a standardised spelling of words when the American established themselves. so the American spellings settled with one version, while the English a few years later settled on another version.

 

[captcalhoun]

actually, no. Daniel Webster changed a lot of the spellings to 'simplify' them when he wrote his American dictionary. he took the 'u' out of colour, honour, and changed the -re to -er like centre or metre. (that last one is stupid, because a meter and a metre are two different things in English-English...)

 

[Trent Roman]

we aussies (and the kiwis too) leave the U's in our spelling, and it's Aluminium!

Ditto Canuckistan; colour, grey, etc. That said, I've only once had an English teacher anal enough to insist on standardized Canadian spelling as opposed to the bastardized hybrid a lot of us use since we get a lot of media from the United States and pick up those spellings by osmosis.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Stevil2001]

But if none of your readers know what a kellicam is, all you've done is confuse them.

Why? When Torg told Kruge, "Enemy closing on impulse power. Range, 5000 kellicams," it was perfectly clear from context that a kellicam was a unit of distance. When he then counted off "3000 kellicams" and "2000 kellicams," that reinforced his earlier statement that the Enterprise was drawing closer. I don't see anything confusing there. The viewer didn't have to know what the actual length of a kellicam was in order to understand what was going on there, any more than the viewer has to know the rest mass of a tetryon or what raktajino is made of.

I think it works in that context, yes.

 

[Christopher]

actually, no. Daniel Webster changed a lot of the spellings to 'simplify' them when he wrote his American dictionary. he took the 'u' out of colour, honour, and changed the -re to -er like centre or metre. (that last one is stupid, because a meter and a metre are two different things in English-English...)

Really? What do the two spellings mean over there?

Basically, British English is spelled the way it was pronounced when Samuel Johnson wrote his dictionary in 1755, and American English is spelled the way it was pronounced when Noah Webster wrote his dictionary in 1828. (Not Daniel Webster, who was an attorney, orator, and statesman from roughly the same period.)

 

[Rosalind]

(that last one is stupid, because a meter and a metre are two different things in English-English...)

Really? What do the two spellings mean over there?

there's measuring device 'meter' and there's the measurement unit 'metre'.

 

[DimesDan]

Really? What do the two spellings mean over there?

A Metre is 100 cms in distance and a Meter is something that monitors something, say for example a Water Meter logs the amount of water used.

Metre: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=50212&dict=CALD

Meter: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=50169&dict=CALD

Damn, I was too slow!!!

 

[Christopher]

Now that it's been explained, I'm pretty sure I already knew that, but forgot.

 

[William Leisner]

I know the US nixes the U's, but what if the writer isn't from the US? Would the Us be edited out?

From what I've read, I'm sure they do as I noticed that in Uma McCormacks Hollow Men and also in James Swallows Terok Nor story that it was spelt color, but that's probably due to the American Market for Trek books (and most books in general) is far higher than over here in Blighty!!!

Of course, it also goes the other way: in the Doctor Who anthology KRAD recently edited, with a bunch of his Yank writing mates, it was all '-our' and '-ise' and lorries and crisps and whatnot.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I think a better example would be "parsec", I doubt most people know what it means when the characters say "the closest system is blah, blah, 4.3 parsecs away", but I don't see people complaining about it because it's a real astronomical distance.

I see more complaining about Han Solo's obvious misuse of the term.

 

[Marie1]

I know the US nixes the U's, but what if the writer isn't from the US? Would the Us be edited out?

From what I've read, I'm sure they do as I noticed that in Uma McCormacks Hollow Men and also in James Swallows Terok Nor story that it was spelt color, but that's probably due to the American Market for Trek books (and most books in general) is far higher than over here in Blighty!!!

Of course, it also goes the other way: in the Doctor Who anthology KRAD recently edited, with a bunch of his Yank writing mates, it was all '-our' and '-ise' and lorries and crisps and whatnot.

But it can be important. I'm not sure how the US does it, but in Canada, its theatre, and that includes the theatre's URL, so it must be typed in that way of course, and I'm getting used to some of the US versions, so doing that doesn't always occur to me...

 

[DimesDan]

Of course, it also goes the other way: in the Doctor Who anthology KRAD recently edited, with a bunch of his Yank writing mates, it was all '-our' and '-ise' and lorries and crisps and whatnot.

Which makes sense, if your story is based in a particular location with particular characters I for one would be thrown out of the story if say the Doctor called a Mobile Phone a Cell Phone as it's not called that over here and most Doctor Who stories (on screen anyway) have been based in the UK.

 

[Steve Roby]

What just occured to me, of the English speaking nations of to globe, is it just Americans who omit the U in colour as well as having, say a Z in a word like specialise for example (if a zed is not even used in that word, I hope I'm making sense) or do Canadians, Australians and Kiwi's etc do that as well?

we aussies (and the kiwis too) leave the U's in our spelling, and it's Aluminium!

Ditto Canuckistan; colour, grey, etc. That said, I've only once had an English teacher anal enough to insist on standardized Canadian spelling as opposed to the bastardized hybrid a lot of us use since we get a lot of media from the United States and pick up those spellings by osmosis.

But it can be important. I'm not sure how the US does it, but in Canada, its theatre, and that includes the theatre's URL, so it must be typed in that way of course, and I'm getting used to some of the US versions, so doing that doesn't always occur to me...

Well, it's not really that simple.

Standard Canadian usage does retain -re endings where Americans use -er, for words like theatre and metre, and -our instead of -or. The last letter of the alphabet is pronounced zed, not zee. But Canadians don't use a number of British spellings. A British driver may run the tyres of his lorry over the kerb, but a Canadian driver has tires, a truck, and a curb to deal with. Canadians say aluminum and specialty, like Americans, not aluminium and speciality, the British terms. We're more likely to use -ize endings than -ise endings. UK verbs with -t suffixes for past tenses (e.g. dreamt) often have -ed endings in Canada and the US (dreamed -- with a long E sound). Slept and wept are exceptions in both countries.

Canadian English is a more complicated subject than it may seem. It's neither British nor American. It's like it's a whole different country here.

 

[LightningStorm]

Funny thing, I've never been outside of the continential US.. And thus have learned firmly the American version English. However, I have never spelled theatre as "theater." The latter doesn't even look right to me. All other american spellings and such I do have however. Also the "our" in colour, honour, and favourite force me to want to mispronouce them. Like instead of the correct pronounciation I'd say it such that it sounded more like the ending of the word allure.

 

[Defcon]

However, I have never spelled theatre as "theater." The latter doesn't even look right to me.

To bring the thread full circle: Write it with a capital T and it's German.