quote:Originally posted by Phoenix: Yes, they are mostly American, but not all are. Notably, Picard says "loo-tenant" in an English accent (although he is supposedly French (perhaps he went to a boarding school in England)), which suggests that American pronunciation is universal.
He does say "leff-tenant" in one episode, although it escapes me at the moment.
I presume he pronounces it American-style because he knows that real-speak will confuse all those Yanks he works with. It was bad enough when he lent Riker his copy of Philospher's Stone. Poor old Will walked around for a week confused as to how something could be described as "rubbish".
As a counter, in Generations Kirk pronounces Tuesday in a Canadian/British/Real-speak way ("Tews-day"), whereas Harriman says it in silly American speak ("Toos-day"). So some dialects have stuck.
And, personally speaking, when I talk about Trek with my Really Cool Friends Who Have Sex, we tend to say "loo-tenant so and so", simply because that's what they say on the show.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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posted
It's bad enough you spell Latin words the French way, but now you're defending the addition of 'f' sounds in words w/ no letters that have sounds even resembling 'f'.
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-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
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quote:Originally posted by TSN: It's bad enough you spell Latin words the French way, but now you're defending the addition of 'f' sounds in words w/ no letters that have sounds even resembling 'f'.
It's our language we can do what we bloody well like with it! Mind you, our pronunciation of Lieutenant never made much sense to me either (probably due to an over exposure to star trek at an early age). I even went so far as to ask a squaddie about it once, to which he replied in a rather scalding tone "Coz that's wot the Queen says!"...So there.
As for Picard's accent; his whole family seam to have British accents as does his friend Lewis (was he supposed to be French too? I forget) so perhaps Britain conquered parts of France during WWIII or perhaps there was a mass migration of Brits to mainland Europe during the post atomic horror because our poor little island got nuked to buggery and was rendered largely uninhabitable. (not that it's ever been particulary pleasent before hand) Then again perhaps Scotland won the World Cup and the English emigrated in disgust. Another possibility is that the universal translator just makes them sound British because the Yanks think it's cute.
When I'm typing "lieutenant" I always say to myself "lew-e-ten-ent" for some reason it helps me remember the "lieu" --- force of habit, you learn to do something one way and you keep doing it no matter how stupid it is.
-------------------- Later, J _ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ _ The Last Person to post in the late Voyager Forum. Bashing both Voyager, Enterprise, and "The Bun" in one glorious post.
posted
As long as we're writing pseudohistory, what about redoing some of WWII? When France's fall seemed inevitable, one of Churchill's sillier ideas was to merge France and the UK into a single nation to ensure continuing resistance. Nothing came out of it at that time, of course - even de Gaulle hated the idea. But what if...?
posted
Yeah, the Daedalus should definitely appear.
quote: perhaps Britain conquered parts of France during WWIII
This is the better scenario by a long way. can't have the frogs getting too uppity can we? I like to think that we got off OK in WWIII, at least compered to the US. I think we have to accept that France got off OK too as the Eiffel tower is still standing (on the other hand it could be a holographic recreation so Americans know which city they're looking at ).
More speculation: that Colonel Green bloke (or whatever his name was) betrayed the US and took down the missile defense system so the eastern Coalition (Or whatever it was from FC) could nuke the US. Possibly some nukes landed in Europe and I have no doubt about SE Asia being taken out (weren't they Asiatic looking in 'Encounter at Farpoint'?). Conventional fighting pretty much everywhere, global economy is totalled, governments in total disarray etc. Australia/NZ and some European countries only ones left in any kind of fit state but still takes a while for the governments to regain control and so on.
Then the new golden age of British Imperialism...
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
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