Those who are unapologetic, nay, proud to label themselves Trekkies will automatically identify the subject of this post from the title. Those of us who formerly bashfully called ourselves Trekkers, will also have an inkling of what is to come.*
While the terminally pedantic will point out that the whole split infinitive argument is … er, well, I lost the will to live long enough to decipher whether it is a split infinitive, or if the whole split infinitive discussion is sooooo 2 centuries ago, and none of that matters now, so just make up your own mind. Whatever it is, it is sexist, which might have been almost excusable in the 60’s when ST:TOS** originated, but not in 2009. Of course, another search aspect during which I lost the will to live was to ascertain if the (potential split infinitive warning) “Boldly going where no man has gone before”, is actually used in the new film or not. Much more egalitarian and inclusive is “Boldly going where no sentient being has ever gone before” at least it is in my equalities overloaded cranium where split infinitives take a negative warp-factor 10 backseat to politically correct grammar.
This dismal excuse for blogging about the new ST film is so that I can nit-pick about the lack of female characters in contrast with Rodenberry’s very first pilot where Majel Barrett was first officer and the (for the time) groundbreaking casting of Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) in the first series. I noted in a previous blog that Majel Barrett lived long enough to record her customary role as computer voice in this (possibly) final ST film outing, but it appears that otherwise female roles are scarce this time round. Feminists will readily acknowledge that this is more evidence that in some key areas, women’s progress towards fully recognised humanity has been put into reverse in comparison to 40 years ago. That’s a blog for some future date.
One of the first accidental discoveries I made when going online in the early 90’s was that ST:TOS mainly, but also other parts of the franchise, were mainstays of the burgeoning slash fiction genre. I’d first encountered this phenomenon courtesy of Joanna Russ in an academic essay on Kirk/Spock zines in the 80’s but had not read any. Call me fussy, but after a memorable afternoon reading quantities of this online I’ve never bothered again. And the purist in me cannot cope with crossover slash fiction. That would be where enthusiasts mix their series or genre and have stories in which say Highlander meets Buffy. Just not my idea of entertainment. If none of this is making sense, then you really need to further your education at this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_fiction
To continue this theme. Jean-Luc Picard and Gandalf were performing together in Edinburgh last week. Apparently, this was not crossover slash but some boring play by some boring boy playwright. They were joined by the bloke who died in a kilt in that film “Four Weddings and a Hugh Grant”. Still, apparently not slash.
http://www.list.co.uk/event/89151-waiting-for-godot/
If you are still mystified by all this or have thus far managed to avoid the whole ST franchise, then this link takes you to as good a review of the film as any. Of course, I’ve not yet seen the film, but that will be rectified when it arrives in Edinburgh.
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/showbiz/23740-new-star-trek-is-a-superbly-entertaining-return-to-its-tv-origins
*OMG!!!!!!!! I did a Word spell check and discovered that Microsoft (at least on my comp) corrects Trekkies to Trekkers – you just know what this says about Microsoft employees.
** Jargon buster for the wilfully untrekked
ST:TOS – Star Trek, the original series
ST:TNG – The Next Generation
And so on and so forth.
“He’s deid captain, stane deid, nae pulse…”
http://digg.com/d1A3Q0
Just appreciate …
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/8822/nichelle.html
5 comments:
The split infinitive, re grammar, isn’t a ‘rule’ in English. It’s simply to alert a writer (who cares) that it can be awkward or inelegant to split the preposition from the noun-form (this last is no doubt wrong: I don’t know my Onions: C. T. Onions “Modern English Syntax”, a trifle too condensed for my declining intelligence”).
Fowler’s “Modern English Usage” (not the defeatist Third Edition, where the reviser simply accedes to every ugliness: ‘due to’ acceptable for ‘owing to’? I ask you, can anything be more repellent – though beloved of uneducated bureaucrats who think it sounds – yes! - bureaucratic) has this in the Second Edition (1965):
“Split infinitive. The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish.
(1)Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by most of the minority classes. ‘To really understand’ comes readier to their lips and pens than ‘really to understand’:….”
This from a modern guide “The A to Z of Correct English” by Angela Burt (2002) (the whole book wonderfully available at http://uploading.com/files/JNSC6HE5/A_Z_Correct_English.rar.html though you’ll need the uncompressing utility like the freeware 7-zip http://www.7-zip.org/):
“split infinitive
The infinitive of a verb is made up of two words:
to eat, to speak, to begin, to wonder
If a word (or a group of words) comes between the two words of an infinitive, the infinitive is said to be ‘split’. It is not a serious matter at all!
You may sometimes find it is effective to split an infinitive. Do so. On other occasions to split the infinitive may seem clumsy. Avoid doing so on those occasions. Use your own judgement.
Here are some examples of split infinitives:
to boldly go where no man has gone before
to categorically and emphatically deny any wrongdoing
to sometimes wonder how much will be achieved
They can easily be rewritten:
to go boldly
to deny categorically and emphatically
to wonder sometimes”
I understand of course your objection is feminist. There was a time when ‘man’ could stand for ‘mankind’, but I realise it won’t do now (and nor will ‘mankind’, though I’m sorry about the latter). I’m old enough to still see (still to see) these as universals, but most won’t, so maybe something like ‘people’ or ‘persons’. ‘Humans’ sounds too formal – though may have been right for a ‘scientific’ programme. All the alternatives are less poetic, but the loss of a little rhetorical power is a small price to pay for inclusiveness.
I think ‘sentient being’ isn’t quite right, because the phrase meant us monkey-people). Spock was an anomaly. With ST:TNG it would seem to fit better (what with Data, Worf), but even so was not what was meant. Clearly, even in ST: TOS, lots of sentient beings had been there before (or, more often,, had always been there). It was just us humans that hadn’t (and also Spock - though he was half-human - but maybe his other half the Vulcans had visited).
I went to see the Waiting for Godot production at the Kings Theatre in Edinburgh, and must say simply that it was magnificent. Jean-Luc made it so (can’t remember Gandalf’s catchphrase – probably didn’t have one as the unpleasantly anti-working class LOTR (can I have been the only person rooting for the Orks in Peter Jackson’s excellent film version?) was remarkably po-faced). I saw a version years ago which made me think the play was a closet drama, to be read not performed, perhaps unperformable. This production brought the play so vividly to life that I was held spellbound. I remembered nearly every line, but to see it imagined in on stage so engagingly was engrossing in the extreme. I must mention the exceptionally performance of Simon Callow as Pozzo – I wasn’t sure this part could be funny, never mind the centrality of the play.
I go so far as to say the production rescued Beckett for me. I’d no doubt he was one of the great writers of the twentieth century, but I’d begun to think that the bleakness of existence in his work was rather mundane. I think Beckett would have loved the Kings production: the play makes it quite clear how bleak existence is; but it goes out of its way to make it tolerable to us through the comedy. No need to tell the bleakness bleakly.
I've always found the best of Beckett screamingly funny; if you haven't done so check out the early novels Murphy (1945) and especially Watt (1945). The last has my favourite comment on existence "If there was one thing Watt hated more than the sky it was the ground; if there was one thing Watt hated more than the land it was the sea;" and a few more for a long paragraph (forgive inaccurate memory for the misquote: Beckett had it rather better phrased - unsurprisingly).
I’ve never read slash fiction, though understand its rationale. I once had a drink with a woman who wrote Bonanza slash fiction, and found her description of the fiction and especially the social milieu in which it was read and discussed fascinating. Hoss and horse were indeed interchangeable.
I do appreciate Nichelle, esp. her legs. But this all to do with the age in which ST:TOS was produced: Nichelle was a telephonist, with a mini-skirt. But no improvement with ST:TNG: the roles for women were new-age therapist (Counsellor Troi, almost without sexiness, in contrast to the actress in real life) and the doctor (females ok for nursing and caring). They did have a female security officer (actress Denise Crosby), but soon got rid of her for gender-role safety of Worf.
Loved Taysiders in Space.
Thank you for the education in split infinitives. I will add a sixth category, namely, those who know and care but will not live long enough to learn to write proper like. I add myself into that category. Therefore I will comfort myself with Ms Burt's advice to just get on with it when it sounds right to use. Although, I now find myself tempted to insert as many infinitives of the split kind into my writing as possible thus ensuring a clunky and uglyfied, but deliberate stylee.
Becket is not going to be my choice for reading material on my desert island - can't say any fairer than that.
Hoss and horse were an image too far. I'll now have to wipe that from my delicate mind with another viewing of Taysiders in Space but first, dispense some advice to be more careful if drinking with women in bars.
Captain’s Log – Supplemental: this from the Guardian review at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/08/star-trek (which was very favourable:
it is this older Spock, over the closing credits, who gets to recite the legendary words about the mission to seek out new life, new civilisations. The final words are, incidentally, politically corrected to "where no one has gone before".
Captain’s Log – Supplemental 2: a second (less-favourable)Guardian review at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/may/11/star-trek-jjabrams-sexism points out how little women's roles have improved in the 40 years from TOS to the film.
I totally agree. I read the review and was, not surprised, but disappointed.
I'm intending to see the film this weekend and will probably blog about it then.
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