Mental Health Service Needs Klingon Interpreter

[HolyMoly]

Klingon interpreter sought for mental health patients

May 12 2003

Position Available: Interpreter, must be fluent in Klingon.

The language created for the "Star Trek" TV series and movies is one of about 55 needed by the office that treats mental health patients in metropolitan Multnomah County, Oregon.

"We have to provide information in all the languages our clients speak," said Jerry Jelusich, a procurement specialist for the county Department of Human Services, which serves about 60,000 mental health clients.

Although created for works of fiction, Klingon was designed to have a consistent grammar, syntax and vocabulary.

And now Multnomah County research has found that many people - and not just fans - consider it a complete language.

"There are some cases where we've had mental health patients where this was all they would speak," said the county's purchasing administrator, Franna Hathaway.

County officials said that obliges them to respond with a Klingon-English interpreter, putting the language of starship Enterprise officer Worf and other Klingon characters on a par with common languages such as Russian and Vietnamese, and less common tongues including Dari and Tongan.

AP

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/05/11/1052591677008.html

[Shawn]

Yeah, everyone covered that, from Fox news to CNN.

However, it was an Urban Legend.

[HolyMoly]

However, it was an Urban Legend.

I respectfully disagree with Snopes. I live in Multnomah County and saw the TV reportage of it. Just because something was done "as a joke" doesn't make it any less "done." BTW, I've had prior disagreements with Snopes.com on their definition of what constitutes an "urban legend" ... sometimes to the point that I consider Snopes a disseminator of their own kind of urban legendry on some stories.

[Shawn]

My point was just the idea that the health board didn't really plan to spend money on it, and so weren't actively seeking a translator.

(Which in a way is too bad, one of my geek friends of old had the dictionary and used it whenever possible)

[HolyMoly]

My point was just the idea that the health board didn't really plan to spend money on it, and so weren't actively seeking a translator.

They were not actively seeking a translator but they were actively perpetrating a joke. BTW, the joke was not pulled on the public. They were attempting to pull the joke on (ahem) their boss ... and they succeeded. Reporters merely caught wind of the joke and they took it seriously.

In short, there was no active attempt on the hoaxters' part to perpetrate an urban legend on the public. So, it's not an example of urban legendry by design - it's an example of sloppy reporting by error.