Re: SV: Re: Enterprise

In a message dated 1/22/2003 4:27:43 AM Pacific Standard Time,
yonjuuni@EARTHLINK.NET writes:


> > How could she tell that there were ONLY two moods?
>
> I don't watch Enterprise, so I don't know if this fits, but I would've
> interpreted the term "bimodal" to mean that it uses two modes of
> communication.  That is, it's not sound alone, but sound plus some
> visual element, perhaps gestures or body language, whereas all known
> human languages are monomodal, either all sound or all visual.
 That's an interesting new meaning -- something they may not even have a word
for. Something like B-2-G-3, you imagine? (Although I probably "mangal-ed"
the name.) Who knows, maybe that was what the Star Trek writers actually
meant, and ended up duplicating an already taken linguistic term without
knowing it.