A Padawan's Journal returns (as promised) and this go round we're treated to May Kaathryn Bohnhoff's short examination of sci-fi language usage in American culture, especially by those who don't know the source material. Excerpt below:


"In ways both insidious and overt, Star Wars (and, indeed, Star Trek) has become part of our shared folklore. I think I first realized this some years ago when I heard my boss—who flunked American Culture 101 and had never seen a Star Wars movie or a single episode of Star Trek—talk about something moving at warp speed. He had no idea where he got the phrase.

Sure, those of us who were bitten early by the science fiction bug lace our conversations with exclamations of “Yoda!” “You scruffy nerf-herder!” and “Laugh it up, furball!” But now, these fannish phrases have entered the “mundane” vernacular to the point that people who have never seen a single episode of any SF standard talk about phasers, droids, carbonite, Jedi masters, padawans, bantha fodder, laser pistols, Deathstars, starships, and going over to the dark side."


Click here for the full entry where you're encouraged to send in your experiences of being around people using sci-fi expressions in everyday life. Next time, Bohnhoff moves on to music.

The tentatively titled Holostar novel by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff and Michael Reaves will be coming to a galaxy near you in June of 2011. (See, I can use such horrible expressions as I'm pretty sure I'm a fan of the sci-fi source material!)