I was watching an original Star Trek episode the other night. Yes, I am somewhat of a Trekkie and not ashamed to admit it. James Doohan playing Scottie reminded me of how many times actors feign an accent that doesn’t come to them naturally. Doohan was from Vancouver and he affected a Scottish accent so he could say things like, “Captain, I canna give you warp power” which sounded Scottish to everyone except perhaps a real Scottish person. And you may know this already, but Captain Kirk never once used the exact phrase, “Beam me up Scotty”. That’s one of those famous non-quotations that we think we remember from tv or the movies but are a variation on what was actually said. Sherlock Holmes never once said, “Elementary, my dear Watson”. He did use the word elementary a number of times and also said my dear Watson, but not together. Dirty Harry did not say, “Do you feel lucky, punk?” What he said in the movie was, “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” Karl Marx is quoted as saying, “Religion is the opiate of the masses”, but that’s not what he said. I’m told he actually said, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people”. And here’s one I always got wrong from Snow White: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” The real quote was, “Magic mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”. I suppose at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter if we misquote these famous lines as long as they conjure up memories of watching the scenes they come from.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.