Misunderstood Dialog
- Thread starter allstar77
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In "The Paradise Syndrome," Scotty calls his overworked engines "my poor bairns." Not being familiar at the time with the Scottish word "bairn," I thought he said "my poor bearings." I must have been under the impression that the Enterprise's engines had crankshafts!
In TOS "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and TAS "Eye of the Beholder", I thought that they were saying "Cannabis planet" and "Cannabis III", when the name was actually "Canopus."
In TAS "Eye of the Beholder," there is this bit of conversation:
Kirk: According to their log they beamed down six weeks ago.
Spock: Five weeks, three days, two hours, and four minutes to be exact, Captain.
Kirk: Careless of me, Mister Spock.
Something about the cadence of that last line made me think Kirk said "Kahless help me, Mister Spock." And I thought it was really weird that Kirk would invoke a figure from Klingon legend, since Klingons were the enemy, and Kahless was still thought of as "the Klingon who set the pattern for his planet's tyrannies."
Kor
In TAS "Eye of the Beholder," there is this bit of conversation:
Kirk: According to their log they beamed down six weeks ago.
Spock: Five weeks, three days, two hours, and four minutes to be exact, Captain.
Kirk: Careless of me, Mister Spock.
Something about the cadence of that last line made me think Kirk said "Kahless help me, Mister Spock." And I thought it was really weird that Kirk would invoke a figure from Klingon legend, since Klingons were the enemy, and Kahless was still thought of as "the Klingon who set the pattern for his planet's tyrannies."
Kor
Not so much misunderstood dialog as misplaced context, but there was a TOS episode (which one escapes me at the moment) where Kirk says something to the effect of "Notify the discovery on subspace radio." Fans took the line to mean that there was a ship called the Discovery that they were supposed to report to, instead of an actual "discovery" that was made and reported to Starfleet.
It's from "The Squire of Gothos".
And dang, I'd never heard that interpretation before. Maybe some fans were influenced by the spaceship Discovery in 2001: A Space Odyssey, which hit theaters a year later.
When I watch "I, Mudd" and Spock is explaining logic to Norman the android, it always sounds to me like Spock is saying: "Logic is tweeting bird chirping in meadow." as if he were saying: "Confuscious say: Logic is tweeting bird chirping in meadow.". Clearly the captions say: "Logic is a tweeting bird chirping in a meadow.". For some reason, I never heard the "a's" in his sentence.
Are you sure he's not saying bearings? There could be some sort of magnetic bearings somewhere in the engine system.
In The Motion Picture when McCoy is talking about Decker joining with V'ger he says: "Physically join with a human."
It still sounds like he is saying "Physa-glitch on with a human."
For a while I thought it was some sort of future way of talking about getting it on. When man and machine combine they don't just get it on, they physa-glitch on.
When I first watched Wrath of Khan I always thought Kirk had said "What's the meaning of this Dack?" I thought Dack was Khan's first name at the Time. (Dack Khan) I had never seen Space Seed until after I became a full-time Trekkie in 87, so I had no idea what Khan's full name was at the time. (I was however a full-time hardcore original trilogy Star Wars fan and there was a Dack mentioned quite prominently in the (then) latest installment of that saga.
Not a Trek example, but I love telling this story at any opportunity: When Batman & Robin premiered in 1997, my best friend heard George Clooney's line "This is why Superman works alone" as "This is why Superman wears cologne." He couldn't understand why that was such a big laugh line & what Superman's choice of cologne had to do with anything. 
Scotty is definitely saying 'bairns.' The word is Scottish slang for 'children'. And a single 'bairn' is a single child.
Do you mean as the ambassador leaves? I could never make out that one but according to the subtitles, it's "You pompous ass!"
That was said to be STIV director Leonard Nimoy, shouting "you pompous ass" in jubilation at the performance just delivered.
That's interesting. I never thought it sounded like Mr. Nimoy's voice.
I always found the Klingon ambassador rather annoying. When I am watching the movies and he starts talking, I just want to go
.Kor
There's a line in TWOK that I've never understood (not even to create my own misinterpretation). Now that the topic is out there, here's my request for clarification.
It takes place during the dialogue between Kirk and Carol Marcus in the Genesis Cave, after David, Saavik and Chekov have left the original chamber they'd beamed into.
At one point in the conversation, Kirk says something that "sounds like" ... "you say he's my son I'd be happy to help".
I've never quite understood the line; Shatner speaks it so quickly and kind of mumbly.
It takes place during the dialogue between Kirk and Carol Marcus in the Genesis Cave, after David, Saavik and Chekov have left the original chamber they'd beamed into.
At one point in the conversation, Kirk says something that "sounds like" ... "you say he's my son I'd be happy to help".
I've never quite understood the line; Shatner speaks it so quickly and kind of mumbly.
Still my favorite YTMND (yikes) after all these years:
Scotty Gets Star Trek Canceled
(warning: could be choppy)
Scotty Gets Star Trek Canceled
(warning: could be choppy)
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