Ok I have possibly the most pointless nerd Star Trek tangent because of this one throwaway joke-y sentence from TMP novelization.
So like, the joke here is that sulu says fuck, or shit or whatever right?
But it also implies that current modern day English (or English of 1979) isn’t Federation Standard. That in fact there is such a difference between our English, and English of the 23rd century, that they call our English “old English.”
And like they’re not referring to it as Old English proper (which we probably wouldn’t understand if we heard it today because it’s so different, like try to read an Old English manuscript, it’s an experience), but it is making a designation between what they know as English and what we know as English.
Which means that there was such a dramatic change in language over a period of about two and a half centuries, comparable to the time of the transition of Middle English (think Canterbury Tales) and Early Modern English (think Shakespeare). And like this dramatic change does make sense, humans have been in contact with other alien species for a couple centuries, they have new access to learning and exploring, like that makes sense. Language often changes when there’s contact with different people and new sources of learning.
But I just want to know what it would sound like. How is Standard different? Because I feel like this sentence would imply that it goes beyond having some new borrowed words. Has the way that they pronounced words changed dramatically? Also this implies that there are new swear words that aren’t as good as shit or fuck??
Like I know that there’s really no point focusing on this, it’s just a fun way to say that “Sulu said ‘shit’” but my language nerd brain hasn’t stopped thinking about this for like a week.
