Bad signs.

I picked up a copy of Arika Okrent’s In the Land of Invented Languages, a history of Esperanto, Loglan, Lojban, and other invented languages.

Now, this may be a fine book; I haven’t finished it yet. But I am a little put off by her opening sentence:

Klingon speakers, those who have devoted themselves to the study of a language invented for the Star Trek franchise, inhabit the lowest possible rung on the geek ladder.

Bzzzzz! Wrong! As we all know, the lowest possible rung on the geek ladder is occupied by “People Who Write Erotic Versions of Star Trek Where All the Characters Are Furries, Like Kirk is an Ocelot or Something, and They Put a Furry Version of Themselves as the Star of the Story.”

(Seriously, as much as I hate Trek, I have a lot of respect for people who can speak Klingon, or any other invented language. I don’t know anybody who looks down on the Klingon speakers.)

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 11th, 2012 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Books, Geek. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Bad signs.”

  1. Joe D says:
    February 11, 2012 at 5:42 pm

    Furries aren’t the lowest rung.

    You’d think otherkin would be the lowest. They aren’t, either.

    Otakukin. That’s the lowest. Even the Pöpli kids mock them.

  2. Earl Cooley III says:
    February 12, 2012 at 8:52 pm

    Look down on Klingon speakers? Not more than once….

  3. stainles says:
    February 13, 2012 at 8:25 am

    My first thought, Joe, was that you were making these up. If you are, you certainly put a lot of effort into the hoax.

    My second thought was that I wanted to make a distinction between the geek hierarchy and serious psychological disorders.

    My third thought is: I’m just speechless.