Random Things You Learned From Trek

[Bry_Sinclair]

What's the most random thing you learned from watching Star Trek?

For me it comes from The Undiscovered Country, where Valeris mentions the origins of the word "sabotage". It's been something that's stuck with me ever since the first time I watched it.

 

[φ of π]

I remember reading about that on Cracked.com recently, but now I can't find the specific article. I do remember that what Valeris says about the origin of the word sabotage is inaccurate though, but they both come from the same root.

Something about the sound that the wooden shoes make, rather than the shoes themselves being the root of the word. If I could find the article I would quote the paragraph.

 

[triskelion16]

Actually, it comes from the French saboter, and initially meant destroying through clumsiness. Sabots are ungainly and noisy.

 

[Tracy Trek]

I'm not sure if this one counts since it's from the Trek novels or Trek film novelizations. I learned that Vulcan was supposed to orbit the star 40 Eridani. Although one of the novels said it was Epsilon Eridani.

 

[Joanna McCoy-Kirk]

Watching TOS as a teenager, I learned such words as "inculcate" (The Galileo Seven) and "peroration" (I, Mudd).

 

[Tim Thomason]

Valeris: "Three hundred years ago, a popular hip-hop group wrote a song about a person scheming to destroy the acts of another person. Hence, a Sabotage."

Kirk: "Actually, it's pronounced sabatage."

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

I'm not sure if this one counts since it's from the Trek novels or Trek film novelizations. I learned that Vulcan was supposed to orbit the star 40 Eridani.

The video game Star Trek: Conquest perhaps?

 

[Tracy Trek]

The video game Star Trek: Conquest perhaps?

No, I don't play video games. I think it was probably the novel "Spock's World" where I first read it.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I learned how to sing a seventh (the first two notes of the original theme's melody).

 

[Kor]

I learned that only Nixon could go to China, and that this is an old Vulcan proverb.

The video game Star Trek: Conquest perhaps?

The idea that Vulcan orbits 40 Eridani A goes way, way back. Specifically, James Blish's novelizations of TOS.

Kor