Are there any linguists in the house?

[Imperial Overlord]

Trojan Horse.

[Edi]

Continuing in the Greek mythology vein:

• Sword of Damocles
• task of Sisyphos
• Oedipus complex
• the word 'harpy' to describe an ugly woman (or one who acts like a total bitch)
• the expression "descend on someone like a Fury"
• to guard/watch something like Cerberos
• siren song
• chimaera as used to refer to hybrid animals and other results of biological experimentation

That should do for a while...

Edi

[Petrosjko]

'Son of a gun'.

Comes from sailors smuggling prostitutes aboard ship and having sex with them on the gun decks. Used to mean 'son of a sailor's whore' and was a deadly insult.

[Xenophobe3691]

Calculus (Comes from the latin word for Pebbles)
Herculean task
Robotics (Invented by Asimov)

[Spacebeard]

Robotics (Invented by Asimov)

Actually, of course, it was Capek who first used the word "robot", in "R.U.R".

Asimov only extrapolated the root word to make "robotics" and "roboticist".

[Melchior]

"Ghetto" is the name of an island off the coast of Italy where Jews were forced to live during the reign of the Facist Party.

Well, no.
It was in Venice, several centuries before, and it was the first "ebraic by law" quartier.
Then Paul IV extended the idea.

[Spacebeard]

- To go on a crusade or a jihad
- To make a Faustian bargain

[Jaepheth]

If I'm not mistaken, the word 'quiz' was made up in ancient Greece just to make people wonder what the word meant.

And IIRC, Shakespeare made up the words 'chimney' and 'assassination'

[Spacebeard]

And IIRC, Shakespeare made up the words 'chimney' and 'assassination'

I don't know about "chimney", but "assassin" is derived from the Order of the Hashishim in medieval Turkey, who were in a sense the original Islamic terrorists: they were hopped up on hashish, shown a "garden of wonders" with hot virgins as a "vision of heaven", then sent out on suicide missions to assassinate local nobles for the purposes of political extortion.

It's possible that Shakespeare was the first to use this word in English, but it definitely originated elsewhere.

[Dahak]

The English language is littered with such examples, simply because of our past affecting how the culture integrates new concepts. The etymology of most common words and phrases will likely be a long and interesting one that most are oblivious to.

Not only the English language
Most of the "classical" ones, from ancient Greeks or the like, have the same meaning in many different languages.

[Dahak]

So, basically what we are getting at is that the idea of a language being based on metaphors is nothing to write home about, instead most if not all of the alien languages should do the same... and even if they don't, ours do, which would actually mean that they should be EASIER, not harder to translate.

The problems comes in when you have no idea what that metaphor stands for, as was pointed out in the episode (Ignoring the fact that their own youth would have problems learning that language...).
I daresay most White Trash wouldn't understand what a "pyrrhic victory" when you asked them...

[Spacebeard]

So, basically what we are getting at is that the idea of a language being based on metaphors is nothing to write home about, instead most if not all of the alien languages should do the same... and even if they don't, ours do, which would actually mean that they should be EASIER, not harder to translate.

The problems comes in when you have no idea what that metaphor stands for, as was pointed out in the episode (Ignoring the fact that their own youth would have problems learning that language...).
I daresay most White Trash wouldn't understand what a "pyrrhic victory" when you asked them...

If these metaphors are the exclusive means of communication, as appears to be the case, then their children would learn their meanings from repetition, just as they would a normal language. The metaphors are no more or less arbitrary as symbols than regular words are.

The reason why "Darmok" is implausible is because we are led to believe that the Tamarians cannot comprehend the idea of a language that is not based on metaphors, and vice versa for the Federation. This is nonsensical, as there must be some underlying basic grammar, syntax, and vocabulary which isn't based on metaphors. The phrase "Shaka, when the walls fell" requires normal words meaning simply "wall" and "fall". For them to expand their vocabulary with new metaphors, they must be able to understand and express the literal meaning of the metaphor also. Since "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" was based on characters from the mythology of another planet, they must have been able to understand a normal alien language already and translate its literal words into their own.

So the Tamarians should have known to use literal words around aliens who aren't familiar with their cultural context. The universal translator was obviously working on a literal level, since the Enterprise crew could understand the language's grammar and syntax and its words for "wall", "fall", "face", "eye", "black", "red", and so on, and they should have been able to communicate on this level.

[salm]

Ffreudian slip

[Darth Wong]

The metaphor "Darmok and Gilad at Tenagra" could be treated as a single word by a linguist for the purposes of translation. The idea of "metaphor" making their language indecipherable still makes no sense. "Darmok and Gilad at Tenagra" is no more intrinsically incomprehensible than "pyrrhic"; it merely has more syllables.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Fury- from the Greek monsters who dealt out punishment to the wicked (or something like that).

[White Haven]

I think the issue was that the race spoke solely in those phrases, with no context to help identify things. It's the difference between saying 'That was a task as difficult as that of Hercules in the Stables' and 'Hercules at the Stables.' If the entire language is like the latter, there are no context clues, no starting places to learn the language without having to know the language to understand the history.

[Dahak]

Fury- from the Greek monsters who dealt out punishment to the wicked (or something like that).

Furies come from the Romans. The Greeks called them Erinyes.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Virtually all expressions come from peoples' names. "Crap," or "To take a crap" and all of its various offshoots from from Thomas Crapper (inventer of the toilet).

Snopes, my friend, Snopes.


Military vehicles and weapons get names from people all the time.

[Darth Wong]

I think the issue was that the race spoke solely in those phrases, with no context to help identify things. It's the difference between saying 'That was a task as difficult as that of Hercules in the Stables' and 'Hercules at the Stables.' If the entire language is like the latter, there are no context clues, no starting places to learn the language without having to know the language to understand the history.

That makes no sense at all. All language is self-referential and incomprehensible without some kind of external context clues.

[Zoink]

From now on I will speak as follows to fool universal translators:

Shakespeare on the stage with Gene Rodneberry and Einstein is creationist teaching science class.

[AMX]

The expression "Pandora's Box". From Greek Mythology, where a woman named Pandora opened the box that contained every disease and let them out into the world to be the scourge of mankind.

Correction: Pandora delivered the box, she didn't open it.
That task was left to Epimetheus (brother of the famous Prometheus).

Actually, of course, it was Capek who first used the word "robot", in "R.U.R".

And he derived it from the word for "forced labour", IIRC.
Whether that goes back to some ancient story, I have no idea.

[The Spartan]

Lock, stock and barrel comes from old firearm terminology.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

Here's an example that a Chinese teacher taught me once about foreign-language idioms. If someone told you that "you're just standing by a tree waiting for a rabbit" what would you think he meant?

[Dahak]

Yes, that is an annoying thing to learn... Idioms...

[RedImperator]

Here's an example that a Chinese teacher taught me once about foreign-language idioms. If someone told you that "you're just standing by a tree waiting for a rabbit" what would you think he meant?

You're wasting time waiting for something to happen when you'd do better actively seeking it?

Just a guess.