Swearing in Star Trek - Steve Shives

[Oddish]

It's funny when you think about it... I mean, what is the F-word, anyway? In the end, it's a slang term for an everyday aspect of life, a process that created nearly all of us (fertility treatments being the exception). The King James Bible calls it "knowing", Deanna Troi uses the euphamism "had a relationship", others might call it screwing, banging, the wild mambo, or making love. But only this one particular expression carries the "obscene" stigma.

I don't know, I think it's funny.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

George Carlin once noted that many people feel that it is far better for children to see depictions of two people making love than two people trying to kill each other, and he then suggested that we ought to replace the word "kill" with the word "fuck" in all the old movie cliches.

As to Dr. T'Ana's command of "Army Creole," well, I've lived around cats for long enough to know that they swear at each other all the time.

 

[fireproof78]

It's funny when you think about it... I mean, what is the F-word, anyway? In the end, it's a slang term for an everyday aspect of life, a process that created nearly all of us (fertility treatments being the exception). The King James Bible calls it "knowing", Deanna Troi uses the euphamism "had a relationship", others might call it screwing, banging, the wild mambo, or making love. But only this one particular expression carries the "obscene" stigma.

I don't know, I think it's funny.

I do find it highly amusing how words take on a life of their own, especially with the history. More interesting to me is the effort to sanitize human language in the far future. We see a return to the very formal, ridged, Shakespearian style language, which sounds really nice and doesn't connect always with the average person. And, to use more crass language represents something highly negative. Certainly has for me in the past, to the point that I would not talk to people who swore. Not sure it was very helpful attitude to have though...

 

[C.E. Evans]

Yeah, that's total bullshit.

No, we're all bullshitting about bullshit.

 

[oldtrekkie]

The funny thing is that "fuck" is mild compared to swear words in some foreign languages.

 

[Oddish]

It's mild today. A few decades ago, it was a big deal. That's what I'm saying: the true obscenities change with the times.

In the 19th century, it was the dreaded "big big D".
In the 20th, it was the F-word.
In the 21st, it's those words that rhyme with trigger and maggot. Try saying THOSE in front of that high school teacher who doesn't care about F and S words... you'll be in the principal's office posthaste, and expect to "volunteer" for some remedial diversity training soon after.
By the 23rd and 24th, who knows what words will set people off?

 

[Maurice]

We also need a bit of historical longview here. Language goes through phases. The past 50 years of American and western culture has featured a broad decline in formality. People dress, act and speak less formally than they did in the century prior. Currently we're in a somewhat infantilized language phase where people deliberately write and speak bad grammar e.g. "because TV". And that's not a judgement, that's just a cycle.

Old TV shows, and this includes Star Trek, were written in that older, more formal way. The sequels and spinoff largely stuck to this model for quite a while. So we're used to Star Trek sounding like a 1950s TV drama, not anything more post Hill Street Blues modern.

 

[The Wormhole]

I understand that Patrick Stewart was unsettled as well.

He wasn't unsettled. He was surprised by the presence of profanity in a Star Trek show, that's all. Considering the man has veto authority over content in the show, I should think if the swearing bothered him in any way, it would have been removed.

 

[1001001]

He wasn't unsettled. He was surprised by the presence of profanity in a Star Trek show, that's all. Considering the man has veto authority over content in the show, I should think if the swearing bothered him in any way, it would have been removed.

Given his role on American Dad, I'd say Stewart is up for anything....

 

[Oddish]

Not to mention this teen flick called "Masterminds". Stewart had to know he was TOTALLY making a B movie.

 

[dupersuper]

What harm can hearing swear words possibly do to a kid? Sooner or later they'll learn then anyway, no matter what people do to prevent it. Short of locking them up in a cave, there is nothing you can do about it.

You'll get no argument from me, but some parents are weird.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

He wasn't unsettled.

Wrong.

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-picard-patrick-stewart-profanity-shocked/

In his own words for those who don't like to click links:

When I came across the first swear word in the first script, I can honestly tell you, I was deeply shocked. I grew up in a family where swearing was second nature. Every other word was a swear word, and yet when I read... it might have been the F-word that I read and I was shocked and unsettled by it. I think I did have a conversation with Michael [Chabon] about this use of language and how comfortable were we with it. It was something that had never been a part of previous Star Trek.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

Re: Picard’s past actions: despite my above post, I also agree that Picard’s past actions shouldn’t influence his present actions. But the admiral’s response to Picard was clearly written so as to make the audience hate her and immediately side with Picard, even though Picard was actually the one in the wrong.

LOL. I mean, you're probably right, considering the hate Clancy gets from so many, but it totally didn't work with me. And I love Picard and, ofc, was on his side. But I also understood where she/ Starfleet were coming from, plus "sheer fucking hubris" was iconicc.

 

[Dukhat]

LOL. I mean, you're probably right, considering the hate Clancy gets from so many, but it totally didn't work with me. And I love Picard and, ofc, was on his side. But I also understood where she/ Starfleet were coming from, plus "sheer fucking hubris" was iconicc.

If by ‘iconic,’ you mean ‘bad writing,’ then yes, it’s iconic.

 

[fireproof78]

LOL. I mean, you're probably right, considering the hate Clancy gets from so many, but it totally didn't work with me. And I love Picard and, ofc, was on his side. But I also understood where she/ Starfleet were coming from, plus "sheer fucking hubris" was iconicc.

Agreed.

 

[oldtrekkie]

Clancy was written to make the audience hate her? Well, congratulations! As far as I am concerned... they've succeeded.

 

[fireproof78]

It's fun because I don't like her at all and still agree with her completely. Such a fun juxtaposition.

 

[The Wormhole]

Wrong.

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-picard-patrick-stewart-profanity-shocked/

In his own words for those who don't like to click links:

Regardless he still has veto authority over content in the show, which he exercised when Akiva Goldsman wanted to make the second season about a space pandemic (Stewart said no, and now it's about something different). So my point still stands, if he had a serious issue with profanity in the show, it wouldn't be there.

 

[Qonundrum]

George Carlin once noted that many people feel that it is far better for children to see depictions of two people making love than two people trying to kill each other, and he then suggested that we ought to replace the word "kill" with the word "fuck" in all the old movie cliches.

As to Dr. T'Ana's command of "Army Creole," well, I've lived around cats for long enough to know that they swear at each other all the time.

Naah. The people will then die of incurable or untreatable/superbug/etc strains of STDs. Carlin sure made it sound like the real thing, though! Or a funny thing!

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Naah. The people will then die of incurable or untreatable/superbug/etc strains of STDs. Carlin sure made it sound like the real thing, though! Or a funny thing!

"Stop me before I fuck again!"
"Better watch that clutch, or you're gonna fuck the engine!"

*****
20 minutes later, after actually watching the video at the beginning of this thread:

<Spock> Verbose, isn't he? </Spock>

He could have made his point in 5 minutes, rather than 18.

I think part of the effectiveness of both Tilly and Clancy is that Tilly had, up to (and really, including) that point, was presented as a nervous ingenue (and Hell, when she's with Saru in DSC:"Far From Home," hiking to the settlement, she's back to being the nervous ingenue), and Admiral Clancy looks like (and probably is) somebody's sweet (and very refined) grandmother.

Thus, the vocabulary is shockingly unexpected. Not because of gender. Not because of age. But because the one character presents an aura of innocence and the other presents one of refinement.

On the other hand, Dr. T'Ana's swearing fits perfectly. And the selective (and seemingly random) bleeping in LD bears out Shives' assertion that bleeping is inherently funny.

And I would disagree with the idea that people living in the sort of milieu portrayed on ST -- that is, the best of the best of the best, in a civilization either approaching or in a post-scarcity economy -- would swear as much as we do. Just as I disagree with the notion that a spore drive is no less plausible a way to get around Special Relativity than ST warp drive, SW hyperdrive, B5 jump gates (and jump engines), or the KK (posigravity) drive from ADF's HC.

Neither was it gender (and by implication, sexism) that propelled my shock at what "KMFB" stands for, some time ago, and that it was apparently a self-chosen moniker: it was the fact that an educated professional writer whose works aren't generally written in "Army Creole" would choose a moniker in that dialect. I honestly believe that I'd have been just as shocked if CLB or GC had done something similar.