One of the jobs I had in my younger days was doing mobile home maintenance for Palm Harbor Homes. On a trip down to Yuma Arizona, I was traveling with Bill. The entire way to Yuma he pontificated on the deterioration of the English by our young people,. He was pset but the guttural grunting’s of the young in cutting words down to a single syllable.
Never mind that English is one of the most fluid adaptive languages. How many words have been added to our vocabulary since the dawn of computers, (CPU (Central Processing Unit), Motherboard, Daughterboard, RAM (Random Access Memory), NIC (Network Interface Card), USB (Universal Serial Bus), Firewire, DVD/DVDRW, email, etc.) Science Fiction Books and movies have added to our growing lexicon.
The MacKenna Saga is no different. While the records contain words to describe vehicles, devices and such, I have attempted to use words in the English language closet to their description. For instance, the military, all worlds have them.
During the Home Worlds Second Genesis units of soldiers was formed to protect the King and Empress during the war to defeat the monarchy. Their name has no translation in English. After the wars these soldiers continued to be employed by the government to protect its leaders. When the people moved off into space, sailors of the seas became navigators of the stars. This corps of soldiers were adopted as the ships fighting forces. Their motto “Fides ad officium nostrum” reminded us our the United States Marine Corps motto, “Semper Fidelis”, or Semper Fi”. So the forces in the Saga are known as Marines, a tribute we hope to one of the worlds finest fight forces and defenders of our liberty.
But back to Bill. After a two hour rant we pulled into a restaurant to eat. While ordering Bill requested the waitress put extra shrooms on his salad, short of course for mushrooms. I just stared and didn’t comment. We should listen to ourselves speak, we might be surprised what comes out of our mouths.