So does "A Burning House" Have a New Cover?

[JD]

^Nice photoshopping there.

 

[Scott Pearson]

Christopher said:
Am I the only one who's bothered that whenever Worf or other Klingons mention Klingon opera, they always refer to it as "Klingon opera?" I mean, wouldn't they think of it as just "opera," and our stuff as "Human opera?"

I don't have a copy in front of me to double check, but I think I dodged that bullet in "Among the Clouds"; I had Worf refer to a specific Klingon opera by name, and then either La Forge or Troi called it a "Klingon opera." I hope that's what I did, because I'm also slightly bothered by it. I suspect that's not the only phrase with that construction; it's easy to fall into that grammar pattern of prefacing everything with a race name, even when it's someone of that race talking, which then becomes a strange third person kind of speech.

On a related, but decidely more off-topic, note, I'm also bothered by the use of the word "alien" which seems to me so generic in the Trek universe as to be meaningless. Everybody is an alien, really, so in the briefing room with humans, Klingons, Betazoids, androids, etc., to have someone say "Is the derelict an alien vessel?" just makes no sense. Sometimes it's used in the sense of "a sentient race never before encountered to the best of our knowledge." Sometimes it simply means a non-UFP ship. Sometimes it seems to mean non-humanoid species. Sometimes it comes across as "non-human" even when spoken by a non-human, which is particularly annoying.

All that said, it makes me nervous that I might have fallen into that usage myself without noticing. One more thing I have to double check in "Among the Clouds" and then be pissed at myself if I slipped up.

 

[Stevil2001]

On the other hand, it's perfectly possible for me to say, "I don't like 19th-century American literature very much" when I am an American talking to other Americans. Which would be because I do like 19th-century British literature. Maybe Worf hates the opera of other civilizations?

 

[Christopher]

I'm thinking more of the scene from "In Purgatory's Shadow" where Dax takes the recordings of Worf's operas to give him a reason to want to come back from his dangerous mission (because he'll be afraid she'll lose them). She picks them up and says "I came to get these" and he replies "My Klingon operas." In that context, it's rather silly for him to say it that way. Why not just "My operas?" Hmm, well, I suppose it's possible that he listens to other types of opera as well, but we have no onscreen evidence of that.

 

[Scott Pearson]

Steve Mollmann said:
On the other hand, it's perfectly possible for me to say, "I don't like 19th-century American literature very much" when I am an American talking to other Americans. Which would be because I do like 19th-century British literature. Maybe Worf hates the opera of other civilizations?

Curse you, Mollman, and your well-reasoned point! Yeah, as Christopher also points out above, it's all about context. Sometimes the usage is silly, but there are times when it would make perfect sense to use the qualifier, even when you refer to yourself.

 

[J47]

As I mentioned before, it's just as likely that Worf refers to them as "Klingon" operas simply because he grew up in an adopted culture. He logically would've grown up referring to elements of his mother culture with a qualifier. Some habits are hard to break.