to boldly go"

[Mark Mandel]

On Jan 30, 2008 8:21 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> Actually, I said that about "human" (and "man"), not about "person".
> The difference is significant, at least for me.  My cats have
> personality, but not much humanity.
>

Same for mine, but I still don't consider her a person.

Ron wrote that Spock would be lying in this imaginary dialogue:

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

I agree with you, Ron. But there's a difference between the situations of
Spock and the voice-over narrator. The voice-over is in something of a
borderland, speaking to us viewers on TV for whom Klingons (and Vulcans, and
StarFleet) are fictions. In fact, it's a border in another way too: this is
the introduction to the show. I'm thinking of analogues in Shakespeare: the
Chorus's prologues to Henry V and to Romeo and Juliet, Rumor's to Henry IV
Part 2, and at the other end Robin's (i.e., Puck's) Epilogue to Midsummer
Night's Dream. (I had to look these up, with the aid of my daughter.)

The voice-over, especially to TOS (The Original Series), was evoking The
Wonder Of It All (which despite the ironic caps I mean seriously,
remembering the way it felt), and going "where no man has gone before" was
awe-inspiring.

Too late to take this further. I'm about half an hour overdue for bedtime.

--
Mark Mandel
a.k.a. ...

tlhIngan veQbeq marqem la'Hom -- Heghbej ghIHmoHwI'pu'!
    Subcommander Markemm, Klingon Sanitation Corps
              Death to Litterbugs!
         http://mark.cracksandshards.com/Klingon/

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