I don't want German translation of ranks. Korvettenkapitän somebody..... sounds ridiculous. It was Fähnrich which was disturbing IMO.
The most unfitting translations of Star Trek novels
- Thread starter Kilana2
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I don't want German translation of ranks. Korvettenkapitän somebody..... sounds ridiculous. It was Fähnrich which was disturbing IMO.
I wonder if one of the writers at Star Trek Online was inspired by that. There was a side story where a Na'kuhl went back in time to kill one of Sulu's ancestors, and it was during that time period. His ancestor was named 'Sūrū' in that story.
Probably just be a coincidence though
Is it even a correct translation? I admit I don't know German, but it seems like that's the correct translation for the mythological changeling from what I'm seeing, the kind that's a child that's been replaced with a fae. That doesn't necessarily mean it's the correct translation for DS9's repurposing of the word. (Or reversion? Never knew this before now, but it looks like "changeling" actually did mean "one who changes" before it took on the mythological meaning, if only by a decade or so.)
I never liked DS9's use of "Changeling" to mean "shapeshifter," precisely because it's not what the term is supposed to mean. It's something I'd be fine with seeing, err, changed in a translation. Is there a specific German word for "shapeshifter?"
I honestly think they're both valid definitions, even if DS9 hadn't used it to mean shapeshifter and got that into the fandom mindspace to begin with (if it did; was it the first recent usage in that sense?): "someone that has been exchanged for someone else", the mythological and cultural derivation, vs. "something that changes", the etymological and observational derivation.
Based on the history in that link, I think they should have described the Founders/changelings/shapeshifters/whatever as "Oafs."
Kor
Except that's not really one of its definitions.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/changeling?s=t
I think you're taking that etymological entry too literally; "one given to change" is explaining the derivation of the word, not providing its definition. And you can't take a difference of 10 years literally. Etymology is about reconstructing a word's history based on limited information. We can't actually know when a word was first coined; etymologists list the date of the earliest documented written use, but there are likely to have been earlier uses in spoken language and quite possibly earlier written sources that didn't survive or haven't been tracked down yet. So that entry isn't saying that the substitution definition originated in the 1560s, just that it was around by then, that the earliest confirmed written use in that clear sense is from that decade. So the difference between 1550s and 1560s is meaningless. The margin of error is so big that they're effectively simultaneous.
Fair enough, that's a good point re: the etymology. Observationally, though, it still seems reasonable to me to parse the word "changeling", absent any cultural context, as referring to something whose relevant property is changing. That's what "-ling" means, after all.
Also since when are dictionaries comprehensive sources of meaning? They aren't meant to restrict or mandate word usage, they're meant to record usage. All a definition not being listed means is that those that compiled that edition of that dictionary haven't observed that usage or had it reported to them enough to note it. I mean, "shapeshifter" literally is a definition for "changeling" now, in that you can use the term "changeling" intending to mean "shapeshifter" and people will generally understand you without confusion. It's not even DS9-limited anymore; Eberron, the D&D campaign setting, uses it in that sense too and has for over 10 years. And if anyone's mythologically aware, it's fantasy roleplayers.
Also since when are dictionaries comprehensive sources of meaning? They aren't meant to restrict or mandate word usage, they're meant to record usage. All a definition not being listed means is that those that compiled that edition of that dictionary haven't observed that usage or had it reported to them enough to note it. I mean, "shapeshifter" literally is a definition for "changeling" now, in that you can use the term "changeling" intending to mean "shapeshifter" and people will generally understand you without confusion. It's not even DS9-limited anymore; Eberron, the D&D campaign setting, uses it in that sense too and has for over 10 years. And if anyone's mythologically aware, it's fantasy roleplayers.
Or rather, as something whose relevant property is having been changed or exchanged. Think of the similar word "foundling" -- that's a baby that was found by someone. It describes what happened to the entity in question, not what the entity itself does. Similarly a hatchling is a chick that's hatched, a nestling is a chick in the nest, a yearling is a year-old juvenile, etc. Then there's an Earthling, which is someone from Earth rather than someone who earths. Or a hireling, which is someone who was hired rather than someone who hires.
Yes, but you cannot use the lack of documentation for a thing as proof that it exists. If you wish to propose an additional definition, you have to prove that it does exist -- I don't have to prove that it doesn't. The burden is on you to present evidence.
Okay, granted, that's something you can cite evidence for. And it does suggest a change in usage as a result of DS9's use. But that doesn't refute my statement that it was an aberrant use of the word when DS9: "Vortex" first applied it 23 years ago. That just wasn't what anyone used the word to mean at the time, or earlier. That's what the dictionary shows -- that there was no documented history of the word being used in that way prior to 1993. And that it still isn't standard enough to have made it into current dictionaries. Two media franchises don't really add up to general use.
Oh, wait, I think we're arguing two different things, Christopher. I was trying to argue that "shapeshifter" is a reasonable definition to use the word "changeling" to communicate, even if it hadn't been previously established and even if that's not the standard definition through mythological context. Not that it was necessarily a pre-existing definition, but that that definition could be communicated with that word with little effort. Sorry, when you were citing the dictionary, I thought you were doing so in order to establish that it isn't a reasonable definition to attempt to communicate using that word, not that you were establishing that it wasn't a commonly-used definition in practice. No, I was purely thinking from the perspective of "if someone wanted to communicate the concept of 'shapeshifter', would using the word 'changeling' be a reasonable way to do so or would it introduce undue confusion amongst people? How much context would be needed in order to establish that as the meaning you are attempting to communicate with that word?"
Sorry, I think I must not have been communicating well enough. No, I was arguing an "ought", not an "is".
Though your argument for the meaning of "-ling" is fair too, that was a subtlety of meaning that I missed. That intended meaning with the word "changeling" might then be less clear than I thought and I'm just biased by media exposure that makes it seem more strongly connected than it would be otherwise.
Sorry, I think I must not have been communicating well enough. No, I was arguing an "ought", not an "is".
Though your argument for the meaning of "-ling" is fair too, that was a subtlety of meaning that I missed. That intended meaning with the word "changeling" might then be less clear than I thought and I'm just biased by media exposure that makes it seem more strongly connected than it would be otherwise.
I think the other reason the DS9 usage bothered me is that we already had a Star Trek episode called "The Changeling," and it essentially used the word in its usual mythological sense, which Kirk specifically explicated in dialogue. I felt the franchise should be more consistent in its own usage. Maybe that's why it bugs me more in Trek than in DC or D&D or whatever. Maybe that sounds arbitrary, but it's how I felt. After all, I'd grown up with TOS for 20 years by the time "Vortex" aired.
^Wow, did you guys not watch TOS or something? The way I learned about the mythological term was from Kirk's explanation in the namesake episode.
Nah, I never got into TOS until after I was pretty 24th century-established. I only started in Trek with "Cause and Effect", and by that point TOS wasn't aired very much in my area except for a single airing at like 2 or 3 AM on weekdays. I picked it up through reading online and Trek books (one of the first ones I read was "The Captain's Daughter"), but I think I didn't actually see my first TOS episode until well after Voyager premiered. And I didn't even go through and watch the whole run until like three years ago.
Haven't watched TOS - "The Changeling". For better or for worse, I first learned the term "changeling" as a generic term for "shapeshifter" from watching Star Wars Episode II.
"Formwandler".
The German dub of ST-VI had Kirk call Martia "Wechselwesen", which basically means "being of change".
Hm, I guess it has caught on, hasn't it? I still don't like it, though.
I kinda like that.
Sounds like something from Grimm.
Let's see, what other terms are there for shapeshifters? Metamorph, polymorph, shapechanger, shifter, lycanthrope, various others. Transformer, I guess, for a certain category. Then there's that weird "allasomorph" term from TNG: "The Dauphin." I never could figure that out. I could understand "allomorph," "other shape," but "allaso-" doesn't seem to be a legitimate Greek prefix.
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