"Hey! Hey! Whaddabout this (hic). Moocow for cattle! Ahhh, hah, hah, hah!"
"Wait a minute! Hee, hee. For investigate how 'bout snoop! Ahhh, hah, hah, hah!"
"Hey, let’s throw the Fox network a goddamn bone! What about making the word for network teeceefox! Ahhh, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah!"
Getting back to Klatu’s enigmatic message to Gort, one of the results of this Alien Nation language jocularity is the Tenctonese name for the Newcomer male lead in the series, Detective George Francisco. According to the bible, his Tenctonese name is Nicto. This opens whole new meanings to the phrase Klatu barada nicto. It seems to be a declaration of teenage love. I have no doubt that future space explorers will find that declaration enclosed in a heart and carved into the bark of a butnut tree:
Klatu
barada
Nicto
There is a town in Maine named Biddeford. In seeking the origins of this town’s name, I ran across two possibilities: it’s either Algonquian for old woman crossing river (biddy + ford), or ancient Norse for I’m on my way to rehab (Betty + Ford).
I have also been a student of misunderstandings. The double and multiple meanings of words in most languages can lead to a host of interesting translation situation that I find very amusing. This bit of amusement led to the following piece, titled "Then Darkness Again." This work’s sole publication, before this appearance, was in my Science-Fiction Writer’s Workshop-I, in the chapter on "Fatal Flaws," as an example of what not to do. It’s a vignette written before I even knew what a vignette was.
Read quickly and keep forgiveness in your heart.
By
Accident
"This is the Big Dip on two-two-one point three. Anybody got their audios on out there?" Al Bragg released his mike key while the twenty seconds ticked off. More than a twenty-second lag between transmissions was a drag. Al checked his instruments and the screen depicting his place in relation to the galactic arm… eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
Al adjusted the frequency and thumbed his mike. "This is the Big Dip on two-two-one point four. Looking for chat-chat; anybody there?" Al looked at his screen and tried to pick out the Sol system by eye. The computer could have given him an automatic fix, but then that would give Al less to do; and Al was bored, not to mention homesick… eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
"This is the Big Dip on two-two-one point five craving some communication." Al sighed, wishing he hadn’t cut across the void from the center to the arm. Nobody ever went this way. Three standard weeks from the candy bar quadrants and he hadn’t raised a peep… eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
"Bet the translator’s on the poopers again."
"Biggy Dippy on two-two-one point six looking for some tricks; let’s hear it out there."
Well, it was either go this way or go the long way around empty. Nuts. I could have found a load. Guess I just wanted to get home… eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
"This is the Dipper on two-two-one point seven searching heaven for some talk-talk."
LADLE, THIS BEAR.
Al jumped, then smiled. Someone was out there, and the literal translations were half the fun of chatter and the game. "Bear, this is the Dipper. I haven’t raised a soul for a sun’s age. Where are you headed?"
ON TOP, LADLE. ONLY ONE. AND YOU?
"Negative, Big Bear. What is your destination?"
SORRY. THE CENTER. QUADRANT TWENTY AND FIVE. WANT THE GAME TO PLAY?
"You bet."
THAT AFFIRMATIVE? NO IS WAGER?
"Affirmative. Shall you start, or shall I?"
START.
"Hey, Big Bear, the translator’s not up to combined or absent personal pronouns. You or me?"
YOU.
"Okay." Al rubbed his chin. The trick was to be truthful without giving away the location. "My planet is beautiful."
MY PLANET IS UGLY.
Al frowned. He had gabbed with aliens from hunks of black ice that thought their own planets were beautiful while Earth was ugly. "Okay, Big Bear. The atmosphere is blue with white clouds of water vapor. It rains, making the surface rich with vegetation."
SKY BLUE A LITTLE. YELLOW FROM DUST. FEW CLOUDS. THE GROUND HARD AND DRY. RAINS LITTLE; GROWS LESS.
Al pursed his lips, then shook his head. "I can’t get it, Big Bear. You?"
NO.
"Want to try government?" Al smiled, hoping the Bear would fall for it. Populated desert planets—maybe twenty of them—and Al knew them all. A few hints on governmental structure would be all that was needed.
IS GOOD. ME FIRST?
"Go."
PEOPLE MINE… OPPRESSED. ALWAYS. OUR GOVERNMENT OR OTHERS, NO DIFFERENCE IT MAKES. REVOLUTIONS. MANY, BUT NO DIFFERENCE IT MAKES.
Al scratched his head, trying to think of a dustball in political turmoil. Might be Garnetsid, but, no; the Bear said he has only one head. He keyed his mike. "Long ago, we had a revolution. But we are free. The wars are all behind us. We can pretty much choose what we want to be, and we’re well off. Wealthy. I own my own ship."
AH! IS GOOD. I GUESS NOW. MINTAKA TWELVE?
"Negative, Big Bear. I’ll go first with economy. I said we were wealthy. I bet we’re the financial center of our quadrant."
NOT IS MINTAKA TWELVE?
"Negative on Mintaka Twelve." Al chuckled. He’d caught several drivers on Mintaka Twelve.
NO UNDERSTAND. THIS GOOD. MY BEINGS POOR ON PLANET MINE. FOR REASON, GO TO QUADRANT TWENTY AND FIVE BUY WEAPONS NOW. YOU GUESS LADLE NOW?
Al slapped his knee. "It has to be Sadr Five, Big Bear. Right?"
NEGATIVE, LADLE. GUESS ANOTHER TIME?
Al frowned at the static in the transmission. "I’m out of guesses, Big Bear. Say, how do you read?"
EYES. TWO.
Al sighed. "Your reception. Is it getting weak?"
FOUR AND SOME, LADLE.
"I guess this is it. You give up?"
YOU?
"Affirmative, Big Bear, I don’t get stumped very often. What’s your planet?"
EARTH. THIRD IN SYSTEM OF SOL.
"That can’t… Big Bear, go off translator and retransmit." Al frowned at his speaker.
TIERRA.
Are you… Spanish?"
MEJICANO… HABLA INGLES? POR QUE?
"I’m from Earth. North America."
GRINGO?
"Yeah, wetback. I guess it’s how you look at it."
SI.
"Small galaxy, isn’t it ?"
ES VERDAD… ADIOS.
"Yeah… good-bye, Big Bear." Al shrugged and adjusted the frequency. "This is the Big Dip on two-two-one point eight…"
THE MERCIFUL END
Predictable, pointless, perfidious, poop—there is absolutely nothing you can say about "Darkness" that I have not already said to myself (which was only somewhat more brutal than what the rejection slips said).
My amusement with misunderstandings in translation had been exercised earlier in my story, "The Slick Gentlemen," one of the tales of the original star circus that eventually crashed on the planet Momus (the circus, not the story). This story had its language fun from several angles. First was circus lingo, the jargon spoken by the employees of O’Hara’s Greater Shows. This was complicated somewhat by aliens being part of the company, and was complicated further by the even more alien aliens for which the show performed. We enter the story where Warts, the keeper of the show’s route book, has a crisis of conscience and decides to turn in John J. O’Hara and the show to the police because the show is crawling with pickpockets, grifters, and scam artists who paid O’Hara a very large sum for the privilege of fleecing the inhabitants of Planet Chyteew, all of whom had never before seen a circus. The more Warts sees of the "slick gentlemen," the less he likes them.