TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
On Mon, 22 Sep 1997 14:42:55 -0500, Tim Altom wrote:
>>><Aside: There is a really good Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where
>>>the Enterprise encounters the "incomprehensible" Tamarians. Picard and the
>>>Tamarian Captain are isolated on a planet and must figure out how to
>>>communicate because their lives are at risk. Picard finally figures out
>>>that the Tamarian language system is based on metaphor.>
>>>
>>There must be more to the program than this summary. What language system is
>>*not* based on metaphor? Except for the inhabitants of one of the worlds in
>>_Gulliver's Travels_ who "talk" about things by actually displaying the
>objects.
>>--Wayne
>
>Not much more, unfortunately, except that the Tamarians took it to an
>extreme in that almost everything they said beyond "Ugh" was related to some
>old myth or story. It would be as though we said "cleaning house" by stating
>"Hercules, his task at the stables". Poetic, to be sure. Literally a
>language of epic proportions.
There is, in fact, a web site dedicated to the Tamarian language (but
then, aren't the sites for all things Trek, no matter how seemingly
trivial?) - check out:
IBM even had a link to this once, from their page/ad for VoiceType
Dictation :-)
Your friend and mine,
Matt
<insert standard disclaimer here>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The choral background music for the recent Internet Explorer TV ads is
the Confutatis Maledictis from Mozart's Requiem (Mass for the dead).
The words of the final blast of music that accompanies "Where do you
want to go today?" are "confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus
addictis..." which means "the damned and accused are convicted to
flames of hell."
- anonymous
TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
