Data can't use contractions, which is an established fact. What would Data do if the Enterprise discovered a race called the Dosent ? Would he have to refer to them as the Does not ?? I remember someone from my childhood who had a last name that was pronounced as "don't " (not sure of the family spelling).
What would Data do ?
- Thread starter JcarlA
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The hypothetical Dosent Empire isn't a contraction though is it? So Data wouldn't have a problem with it.
Is it really a fact when we've heard him use them?
Don't
I'd
Can't
Shouldn't
I'm
Didn't
We've
...And probably more.
Who do you think is more to blame for the contractions, director of the episodes Data uses them in or Spiner himself?
Or, maybe someone who wrote the screenplay?
I am / I'm not bothered with Data's contractions... maybe it's a little bonus for not having English as a native tongue.
Or, maybe someone who wrote the screenplay?
I am / I'm not bothered with Data's contractions... maybe it's a little bonus for not having English as a native tongue.
In some ways it's silly that Data cannot / can't use contractions considering all the gazillions of operations he can do at the same time...
I had to take a doubletake with the OP. I actually read "contraceptives" rather than "contractions" at first glance. 
The "no contractions" thing is probably something Soong put in. Maybe after Lore he wanted to make an android more formal and less charismatic. I dunno.
The "no contractions" thing is probably something Soong put in. Maybe after Lore he wanted to make an android more formal and less charismatic. I dunno.
I had to take a doubletake with the OP. I actually read "contraceptives" rather than "contractions" at first glance.
That contraceptive subject needs to be talked in the "In Theory - Data and Jenna D'Sora off duty time" thread.
Seems there's always a video when you need one:
Data using contractions montage:
Data using contractions montage:
To be fair, it's never stated explicitly that Data can't use contractions. Data himself said that he has not mastered them. And, as others have pointed out, Data does use them, just sparingly. The "I'm fine" at the end of Datalore was a joke that Spiner was trying to play on the show's producers and editors, to see if they were paying attention. Also, Data uses contractions in every theater production, song and poetry reading he's in, so... he'd be able to say Dozent/Dosent.
I understand the abundance of Data using contractions earlier in the series until it became a more established personality trait. I remember as the series progressed, his use of them diminished greatly.
Yeah, that, too. In the beginning, they didn't have extremely solid ideas. Starting 3rd season, they managed to solidify the "less human" Data portrayal, but he still performs using contractions.
Aside from him actually using contraction, the problem he allegedly has with them is that he can't combine two words into one. It's not that he can't phonetically pronounce "Doesn't".
Which doesn't make any sense either, because assuming he knows what the contractions are, even if he lacked the programmed capacity to spontaneously combine two words into a contraction, he could add a subroutine to his programming, to simply replace phrase elements like "can not", with a substitute phonetic sound, which duplicates the contraction "can't". It's as simple as a filter that some programs use to alter profanity, for example. You don't have to fix the fact that he can't create contractions. You can just bypass it
It's a silly trait that must've seemed like a neat idea when it was first proposed. It's one of those things you just have to ignore - like the fact that the Enterprise's computer can create multiple holodeck characters that could easily pass the Turing test, and yet someone still has to man the controls to fly it from one star system to another.
"There do seem to be some variations on the quantum level. She can use contractions. I cannot." -- Data in The Offspring.
Well, Data himself is wrong, then. He certainly uses them in performances and songs and in holodeck cosplay. As someone in the thread pointed out, from a programming perspective, it's very easy to get an AI to use contractions. I can't do much about the TV show or the fact that the writers couldn't stay consistent, but at least I answered the question for my own head-canon while writing a fanfic at someone else's request. I posited that the anti-contraction stuff was put in there by Soong, to differentiate Data from Lore, as an afterthought. It's why, when Data copies his neural net to Lal's positronic matrix, she can use contractions; Because Data didn't add the little bit of scripting to stop her from doing so.
Just my 2 slips of latinum...
No shit.
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