"to boldly go"

[Mark Mandel]

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.

--
Mark Mandel

On Jan 30, 2008 12:19 PM, <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:

> Interesting question. If I said "No one has ever been in that dog house"
> could you properly say, "Wrong! MY dog has been in that dog house"? I
> don't think
> so. In other words, Klingons, being nonhuman, do not qualify as "one" any
> more
> than any other nonhuman (including your brilliant dog or even Noam
> Chimsky).
> Of course, since the world of science fiction is purely imaginary, one can
> imagine an alternative universe in which "one" refers either any humanoid
> being.
> Obviously, though, when the voice-over says, "... where no none has been
> before" the speaker does not mean to include nonhumans of any sort, since
> it is a
> given that there are other human-like creatures out there.
>
> On   the other hand, I guess I might not find very odd this sentence: "No
> one
> seriously challenged the human race except the Neanderthal."
>
> In a message dated 1/30/08 11:22:36 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>
> > Maybe so, but I'd think with a loss of accuracy, since if for example
> > a Klingon had ventured into some distant corner of the universe to
> > plunder, pillage, or whatever, that would satisfy the "no man/person
> > has gone before" clause but not the "no one has gone before" version.
> > The "no one" is a stronger claim than the original, as well as a more
> > sex-neutrally expressed one.
> >
> > LH
>
>

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