to boldly go"

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

On the contrary, it is only because they are aware of where they and their audience are "positioned" that they can assume that the new. version makes sense. The "full" utterance (including the contextually understood portions) is something like "go where no one [from our world, as normally construed, e.g., excluding angels] has gone before."

Larry was arguing that "one" is more general than "person" because "one" could apply to Klingons and "person" could not. The discussion so far seems to me to indicate that Larry is wrong about this. It now makes sense to me to argue that the following is unacceptable within the sf universe (ie, Spock is lying):

Kirk: Was no one in the room with you?
Spock (knowing that a Klingon was in the room with him): No one.

But it seems to me that this would also be a lie:

Kirk: Was no other person in the room with you?
Spock (knowing that a Klingon was in the room with him): No one.

Or even

Kirk: Were you the only man in the room?
Spock (knowing that a Klingon was in the room with him): Yes.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>

Date:         Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:24:43
To:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:      Re: [ADS-L] "to boldly go"


I'd say that when they changed "no man" to "no one", they didn't think (as
we do) about fussy little questions like what universe the voice-over is in.

m a m

On Jan 30, 2008 2:33 PM, <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:

> So the voice-over is not in the same universe of discourse as the program
> itself? Or is the speaker just wrong--since we know that there are lots of
> places
> in the universe where "sapients" other than humans have gone?
>
> Not to mention angels ...
>
> In a message dated 1/30/08 2:03:00 PM, thnidu at GMAIL.COM writes:
>
>
> > ISTM that as soon as you refer to Klingons, including asking whether
> > Klingons qualify as "one", you have entered an sf universe of discourse.
> The
> > possible referents of "(some/any/no) one", to me, are just about
> equivalent
> > to the referents of "person". If you refer to Klingons at all, you are
> > referring to sapients: individuals whose intelligence and personhood is
> of
> > the same level as that of humans, and who (not "which") are therefore
> > persons and therefore are included in "-one" references.
> >

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