You have the con... or com... OK I'm an idiot. Help.

[rustyw]

Hi,

Its true, a sci-fi fan since 1972 and I'm uncertain what should be said when the average starship 'Captain' hands control over to the 'First Officer'.

Is it con or com (and if so what does it mean) or, is it something else?

Thanks,
Rusty

"There 'are' stupid questions."

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It's "com," presumably short for communications system. (Like intercom, which is short for internal communication system.)

 

[The Ace]

Errr, 'Con,' (console / ultimate command) meaning he's in control while the Captain is absent.

 

[mosaix]

I think it's derived from 'conning tower' on submarines. It's from where the commanding officer 'conducts' the boat.

 

[rustyw]

Errr, 'Con,' (console / ultimate command) meaning he's in control while the Captain is absent.

Actually, I found it here:
Acronyms and Slang

It's con and it can stand for a lot of different things but in this case it stands for: turning over control of the ship.

Rusty

 

[digs]

Haha, I've never heard the expression before, but apparently you're not the only one confused!

 

[MstrTal]

If I may weigh in here; I do believe the proper usage and term is "Con" and to back up my assertion I shall cite the 8th entry from the Oxford English Dictionary.

con | conne | cun, v.2

Pronunciation: /kʌn/ /kɒn/
Forms: Also 17 coun.
Etymology: apparently a weakened form of cond v. used in same sense. (Some think it has been associated with con v.1 As a possible connection, the following has been cited:1393 J. Gower Confessio I. 59 They conne nought here shippes stere, i.e. They know not how to steer their ships.

a. trans. To direct the steering of (a ship) from some commanding position on shipboard.

1626 J. Smith Accidence Young Sea-men 28
Cun the ship, spoune before the winde.
1627 J. Smith Sea Gram. ix. 41
He that doth cun the ship cannot haue too much iudgement.
1657 R. Ligon True Hist. Barbados 120
The quarter Master that Conns the ship above.
1671 London Gaz. No. 580/2,
The Officer that cund the ship.
1721–1800 N. Bailey Universal Etymol. Eng. Dict. (at cited word),
To Cun a Ship, is to direct the Person at Helm how to steer her.
1829 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. 26 730
Shoals, through which the 'Mudian pilot cunned the ship with great skill.
1853 E. K. Kane U.S. Grinnell Exped. xxiii. 185
Our captain, who was conning the ship from the fore-top-sail yard.
1867 W. H. Smyth Sailor's Word-bk.,
Conn, Con, or Cun, as pronounced by seamen.
1883 R. L. Stevenson Treasure Island I. iii. xiii. 104
Long John stood by the steersman and conned the ship.

So I would go with "Con" as it has been shown historically to be correct not only life but in writing as well as given the example from Treasure Island above.

Also I would suggest to everyone, whether they be into writing or not, if they can afford the price to purchase a set of the OED or an online subscription. It is an extremely helpful resource particularly for one looking to write, especially fantasy, and needs to look for the origin of a word or the proper period usage.

 

[mosaix]

That looks pretty convincing...

 

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy]

All of which assumes that by the time we have manned spaceships out there, people on board will use 400-year old nautical jargon. I would find this a rather jarring archaism in a contemporary SF story, unless there's a reason in terms of plot or storytelling style.

 

[MstrTal]

I would say they might possibly use such terms for the same reason William C. Dietz's Legion of the Damned shout "Remember Tripoli", in David Weber's Honor Harrington series they still use a form of a bosuns whistle when dignitaries are boarding or in many other examples of SciFi fiction when some lesser ranked individual announces, "Captain/Officer on Deck!" In a word Tradition.

Tradition has driven military service in ways beyond simple advances in equipment and society can attest for. As a child growing up in 1st a Navy household and then an Army household I learned quickly there was the right way, the wrong way and the <insert service branch here> or Traditional way to do something.

EDIT: In the end it is all up to the writer and their ideals of course.

 

[digs]

All of which assumes that by the time we have manned spaceships out there, people on board will use 400-year old nautical jargon. I would find this a rather jarring archaism in a contemporary SF story, unless there's a reason in terms of plot or storytelling style.

I wouldn't find that particularly odd. There's a bunch of English expressions and proverbs that date back hundreds and sometimes thousands (via Greek or Latin) of years.

 

[MstrTal]

I wouldn't find that particularly odd. There's a bunch of English expressions and proverbs that date back hundreds and sometimes thousands (via Greek or Latin) of years.

Though on the adverse side of this I do like how Melanie Rawn handled the use of long held terms and expressions in her Exiles Trilogy. Granted I wish the 3rd book would one day come out but that is a different discussion all together! By this I mean she had her exiled/lost colony of human descent misusing or often miss saying words and terms we use or understand regularly as if they where perfectly normal. Of course to them they where perfectly normal! I may be wrong but I believe this is what is called linguistic shift? Though she applied it in a more blatant scifi/fantasy setting of course.

 

[Pyan]

All of which assumes that by the time we have manned spaceships out there, people on board will use 400-year old nautical jargon. I would find this a rather jarring archaism in a contemporary SF story, unless there's a reason in terms of plot or storytelling style.

And the word "spaceship" itself isn't?

Just about all the words in common use about travelling in space have the same origin, relating to sea-travel on Earth: ship, vessel, deck, bridge, helm, Captain, docking, voyage...

 

[Droflet]

Thanks for that. I was spelling it Conn. Duh!

 

[Dave]

Thanks for that. I was spelling it Conn. Duh!

Well, if Robert Louis Stevenson spelt it that way, then its good enough for me.

 

[Vertigo]

This does raise an interesting point; pretty much all SF books seem to base their space forces on Navy rather than airforce. I suppose the scale of the vessels does tend to suggest that relationship. However in many ways airforces are a closer match but we rarely seem to go that way. Strange. After all basing a spaceforce on a water based service is no less anachronistic than basing it on an air based service.

 

[MstrTal]

You know that is an interesting point. I for one always took for granted that the interplay of service branches aboard space faring vessels made sense. I.E. Navy Commands the Ships of the Line or the actual large space ships and conducts ship to ship battle. Marines or their analog where responsible for ship to ship warfare, shock troops and consul duty. The Airforce or derivation flew the smaller attack crafts, transport shuttles and the like or where simply planet based defense forces and of course the Army did what the Army does best protect the peace and wage war on planetary and system wide scale.

Perhaps however this model is just one that has been used as a convenient template based upon a reflection of mundane reality that writers once saw around them? Maybe we always took this or something similar for granted and unconsciously followed suit? I do not know but it is interesting as you say and something that perhaps bears consideration and who knows perhaps someone will shake it up. Maybe we will see someone rewrite modern spacefare based upon say modern Army Tank doctrine, it would be different.

 

[rustyw]

Nice discussion. The simularities between a large 'space' ship and large sea faring ships (in most cases subs or aircraft carriers) is really the only comparision available to us. Tanks will not have large crews, launching bays for smaller craft, mess halls, sleeping quarters, navigation (or astrogation) and so forth.

 

[MstrTal]

This I understand I was just throwing out something radically different for the sake of "what if". As in "What if a writer where to attempt to break the standard mold in a radical way what would it be?" sort of thing. I am not personally advocating a departure from anything. However it might be a fun read.

 

[goldhawk]

I have always use con. 'Com' usually means communications.