Inexplicable Cultural Ties: Difference between revisions
Aside about Hebrew feminine names ending in -a
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{{quote|''"The "Parallel Worlds" concept is the key to the STAR TREK format. It means simply that our stories deal with [[All Planets Are Earthlike|plant and animal life]], [[Human Aliens|plus people]], quite similar to that on earth. '''''Social evolution will also have interesting points of similarity with ours.'''''"''|[[Gene Roddenberry]] in his pitch for ''[[Star Trek]]'' }}
While distant planets in fiction are typically different from Earth in many ways (see for example [[Planet of Hats]], [[Genericist Government]], [[Single Biome Planet]]), they also exhibit astounding cultural similarities: [[Aliens Speaking English|aliens tend to speak English]] in the [[Orphaned Etymology|idiom of a 21st-century speaker of English]], their written language, numerals and methods of time measurement are conveniently identical to Earth standards or can be easily converted. You might even spot European cars or [[Stargate City|Vancouver landmarks]]. Women will have Latin-sounding names ending in ''-a'',<ref>Many Hebrew feminine names also end in ''-a'', such as Hefziba, Rebecca, Sara, and Tabitha.</ref> wear their hair long and their heels high. Expect to come across proper names imported from Earth.
These '''Inexplicable Cultural Ties''' are caused by the fact that [[Most Writers Are Human]] and can reasonably expect you, the viewer or reader, to be human as well. Hence, some cultural similarities might be considered [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]] (like a [[Translation Convention]]) or result from a limited budget. Others [[Fridge Logic|might strike you as avoidable mistakes]] by the creators of the fictional work.
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