All I Know

Darmok

It all started a few days ago when my colleague reminded me that we were “on the hook” to deliver something.

About 25 years ago (how I hate being able to say that), I liked to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. I am not and was not a Trekkie or a fanatic, I just liked the program. Even all these years later, a couple of them stick with me.

In the episode entitled Darmok, Picard and gang end up engaged with representatives from another culture [1]. Their language has successfully been translated by the Universal Translater, however the resulting phrases are idioms. “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!” says the space-person-of-the-week, and “Shaka, when the walls fell!”. Frustration on both sides ensues.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Sorta.

“It’s like saying ‘Juliette on her balcony’.” explains Counsellor Troy. “The words are translated, but the meaning is embodied elsewhere.” [2] And I thought that was fascinating, and ruminated it over it for a while. At length I decided that it made for a nice episode, but it couldn’t really happen that way, because a speaker in such a situation would still have command of the elements that compose various phrases that they use. “When” and “walls” would certainly have meaning of their own, right? So, nice try, but, it’s just a show, I should really just relax[3].

Welp, it occurred to me the other day that I didn’t really know what the derivation of “on the hook” was, and that the mental image I had of it, if I bothered to employ it, was somewhere between the sides of beef that Rocky punches, and Joe Piscopo in Johnny Dangerously. Graphic, but not very historic. I inquired surreptitiously of my wife, who was a real English Education major. “I think of meat hanging on a hook,” she said. “Like in Rocky.” Hmm.

“You shouldn’t hang me on a hook, Johnny”

Fishing for this on the Internet will get you into the apparent misinformation backwaters quickly, but it certainly seems like a sure thing that the derivation is from fishing: The fish is on the hook, which is to say, completely committed. I guess.

But we don’t think of that, or Rocky, or Joe Piscopo, we only use the idiom and have no immediate interest in its derivation or composition.

If you don’t like “on the hook” as an example, condsider “in the Catbird seat”. You know it’s a good thing. Do you know why?

So my point it is, Darmok could possibly be real, somewhere, maybe. And that’s cool. [4]

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[1] I like this episode, but my favorite by far, I have come to learn, is entitled The Inner Light, in which Picard lives an entire life on another planet, including a wife he loves, children, and life-long friends. He is subsequently returned to resume his regular life, thus has lived two full lives. In his away life, he finally learns command of a musical instrument, and retains the ability back in his original life. Fascinating, and a bit of a tear-jerker.
[2] She didn’t put it quite that way. I am working from a 25-year-old memory here.
[3] Remember this?
[4] Turns out you can get Darmok and Jalad T-shirts here

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