tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Nov 24 15:08:50 1996
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Re: Klingons in Columbia University
- From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Klingons in Columbia University
- Date: Sun, 24 Nov 96 17:08:43 CST
- In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 22 Nov 1996 23:51:26 -0800
>Forwarded Mail received from: Mark Mandel
>From: "Barry A. Popik" <[email protected]>
> Has "Klingon" been solved??
> Mark Mandel posted my Klingon Query to a special list, but no one knew
>where the name came from. As I stated in a previous posting, I frequently
>found the name "Gerald Klingon '42" in the Columbia University Jest (humor
>magazine) in the early 1940s. I have no idea if this is a real person, but
>he's most definitely a Klingon!
> How can I prove where Gene Roddenberry got the name?
> This is from The New York Times, 26 October 1991, pg. 26, col. 3:
>
> Gene Roddenberry, 'Star Trek' Creator, Dies at 70
> From a B-17 to Starships
> Eugene Wesley Roddenberry was born in El Paso, Tex., on Aug. 19, 1921,
>and grew up in Los Angeles, where his father worked in law enforcement. He
>attended Los Angeles City College, the University of Miami and Columbia
>University, studying pre-law and aeronautical engineering.
>
> Oh my God!
This jibes with something I read in one of those magazine articles some
years back on the "Star Trek phenomenon". Unfortunately I didn't make a
note of it at the time. The jist was that "Klingon" was, in fact, derived
from the name of someone Roddenberry worked for or with and that naming
the enemies of the Federation after him may not have been a compliment.
If someone who has access to one of the two new biographies of Roddenbery
(my library doesn't have either) can check to see if he was on the writing
staff of the _Jest_ during his tenure at Columbia, we may be able to solve
this. I wonder where this pre-law/engineering major developed an interest
in creative writing?
__________________________________________________________________________
Steven L. Boozer | Saying, would know.
University of Chicago Library | Do not know, so cannot say.
[email protected] | -- Zathras