Comments on: And now, a post on the internet in my computer on my blog.

By: Josh Millard

Josh Millard — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:40:13 +0000

Way to seize the reins, Plutor. I wonder if you’ll have some revert trouble, though — while North America seems ridiculous (I don’t think there’s a Mojave, California in Yugoslavia, for example), the Earth status might be considered useful if not precisely necessary given the intersteller nature of the show.

On the other hand, it’s a line in a subsection of an article about minor Star Trek characters.

On the other hand: Wikipedia.

By: Plutor

Plutor — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:53:20 +0000

FTFY. The "North America" and "Earth" parts are both stupid and superfluous. I thought maybe the strange wording was from the script, but it's not. I think it's just Too Many Cooks Syndrome.

By: iamkimiam

iamkimiam — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:27:50 +0000

In American English, we usually go from specific to general (ie. think job interview: I did X,Y,Z at Company A, and that’s why I’m a great ___). The sentence starts out this way, then breaks convention by finishing off with a colloquallistic detail (most people are familiar with Earth, North America, and Mojave—in that order—but not familiar with SoCal. The order even sounds weird in this explanation.) Given the explicit progression, you wouldn’t expect this return to specific. So yes, the argument is a little bit circular; the wording is weird because its weird.