Saturday, March 11, 2006

Frackin' Frackers!

Dear Creators of ‘Battlestar Galactica’,

Let me be begin by introducing myself, my name is Paulius, and I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of your show.

I’m not saying it’s bad, I just wasn’t a fan of the original, and have only managed to catch one or two episodes during TV flicking sessions.

However, the main reason I don’t like your show is one small thing:

The word ‘Frack’.

I understand that the Sci-Fi genre gives you a license to create new words, as the culture we see is not necessarily our own. For example, Star Trek gave birth to a whole new language (klingon), and all trekkies know a few klingon swear words.

However, seeing other humans use an obviously made up words in the space of real swear words just gets plain annoying, especially when it’s obvious what that swearword actually means.

For example:

“Frackin’ toasters!”
“Go frank yourself!”
“I don’t give a frack!”

Ok, ok, I know what you’re thinking. Your show features lots of people under extreme stress, and it would be highly unlikely for someone to be flying a fighter, have someone shooting at them and say: “Oh, gosh darn it! These rotten blighters are shooting at me!”

I also understand that during prime time on the sci-fi channel, you can’t have them actually say: “Holy Shit! The fuckers are shooting at me!”

The problem is, ‘Frack’ is so overused, I find myself simply playing the “Count the Fracks” game every time I watch your show.

I would suggest that you either stop using ‘frack’ so often, sneak in the odd real swear word, or just do away with ‘Frack’ altogether.

A supposedly alien race calling someone a ‘p’tak’ actually works, it’s like hearing someone swear in German, or French, or any language you don’t speak. You get the picture, even though you don’t know what the word means.

Hearing a guy without the pie-crust looking makeup on his forehead shouting “Frack the fracking frackers! They frackin’ fracked me!” Just gets bloody annoying.

Yours Sincerely

Paulius

(Grand Master of the League of People Against Frack in Any Form)

5 comments:

MC Etcher said...

Wow you're like, a total science fiction nerd.

Personally, I have absolutely no idea what a p’tak is. Nope. None at all.

Paulius said...

I like science fiction, bit I wouldn't call myself a sci-fi nerd. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I don't know what a p'tak is either.

I guess I'll just have to wait for a definition from the trekkie that will arrive here to correct my spelling of it.

MC Etcher said...

The actual definition has yet to be stated, I believe. Since most Klingon standards revolve around honor, it's likely this epithet does too. Coward or Bastard, most likely.

Paulius said...

...and I'M the 'total science fiction nerd'?

Kato said...

I thoroughly enjoy BsG (as I'm sure you know), though even I admit that the "frack" thing is kind of annoying. It feels overused, but that's probably just because it's so obviously a made up word it sticks out. Oh well.

Firefly/Serenity had a creative approach to this: they swore in Mandarin.