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Urgo: I didn't mean to. Jack, Samantha, Daniel: He didn't mean to. Teal'c: It was not his intention.
Verbal affectation common to characters who are heavily disassociated from Earth-culture, especially to mark a character as very serious and/or intellectual. Most common among The Spock.
Similar to a mild form of Robo Speak - smarter robots will use Spock Speak instead of Robo Speak. Also sometimes applied to characters from the past, perhaps under the misguided assumption that slang is a modern invention.
Spock Speak is a collection of verbal mannerisms designed to show that a character may be functionally fluent in English, but lacks the usual sense of the poetry of the language that one develops through normal conversation. It distances the speaker from human society, but also gives a sense that the speaker is very smart. Of course, if they're so smart, it's something of a mystery why they can't learn to sound more like a human being and less like a robot.
Specific affectations usually include:
- Excessively rigid adherence to proper word-use and grammar.
- Total (or near-total) avoidance of contractions (except when the actor forgets)
- Avoidance of slang
- Clipped tones and a very precise way of speaking, underplaying emotions (except for a sort of mild disappointment in the listener)
- Heavy use of the Expospeak Gag
- An inability to learn metaphor and figures of speech (see Malaproper)
- Inability to get or tell jokes
- Preferring longer or more technical terms to simpler ones ("Affirmative" instead of "Yes")
- Heavy use of understated, single-word reactions ("Fascinating," "Indeed."), without any intensifiers: "Indeed" would work equally well as a response to "Would you like some coffee?" as to "They're going to kill us all!"
- A preference for the passive voice over active voice ("It is done" vs "I did it").
Bizarrely, these affectations can be combined with Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe in some examples of Pardon Me Stewardess I Speak Iambic Pentameter.
Real world note: There are people in the real world for whom Spock Speak is natural. When the size of the vocabulary exceeds by far the level of social skill, people naturally use their strengths to compensate for their weaknesses — or indeed, may not realize that there is something abnormal about their using grammar and vocabulary that is perfectly familiar to them. Autism causes a focus on precision and difficulty recognizing social cues; when accompanied by high intelligence, this focus may make slang and contractions seem pointlessly vague. People with high-functioning autism and Asperger's syndrome (for which "pedantic speech" is a diagnostic criterion), though in modern times they are taught (or teach themselves) colloquial speech, may prefer to speak using something like Spock Speak. Before high-functioning autism was an official diagnosis, such people often found themselves at home as university professors—possibly the origin for the Spock-speaking "absent-minded professor". Nowadays, most fictional examples of that stereotype either have such a condition or are subject to speculation (canonical or otherwise) that they do.
Legal jargon can also be considered a real-life case of Spock Speak. Sometimes, all it takes to create a void in a contract or a law is a grammar mistake; as a result, legal documents must be written very precisely and carefully, in order to allow for only one way to understand the text. Usually, this involves writing the documents in a highly rigid and formal grammar, using the legal terms exactly as defined in the laws and the legal terms dictionary, and using any other word exactly as defined in Merriam-Webster's (or the OED, if you're British). However the accepted dictionary definitions of words can still be quite subjective. And a long history of trying to make laws more specific and rigid by using increasingly specialized language has left most laws bloated and confusing. In fact a lawyers main job is to interpret the written word of the law — hence the need for court cases, as they tend to interpret it in favor of their client.
In addition, some non-native speakers speak this way due to imperfect grasp of the language (and because, unfortunately enough, this is the kind of English taught in schools and universities, while "ordinary" speech can only be learned in the street, by conversing with native speakers). Not to mention that the language learned from a standard educational tape or university course is almost entirely devoid of idiom and local dialect, and while it often includes very useful words and phrases (such as the days of the week, or how to ask for something in a store), very little emphasis is placed on practical use of the language. As Robin Williams pointed out in Good Morning, Vietnam, you're not going to survive very long in urban America by asking for cheese and butter all the time.
Much of literal Spock Speak - what the character Spock says - can be traced back to (of all things) American commercial aviation. Gene Roddenberry worked as a TWA pilot before he moved to Los Angeles. The limitations of 1940s and 1950s communications equipment made it hard for a listener to tell the difference between a quick "yes" and a quick "no" - both would sound like a staticky "uh". "Affirmative" and "negative" were easier to differentiate. Standard, precise language also made it easier for pilots to communicate in emergencies - they didn't have to stop to think what to say. Roddenberry may have based the character of Spock on pilots he knew, in the same way that he based the character of Kirk on Daryl Gates of the LAPD. Yes, that one.
Contrast with:
Compare with:
Examples:
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- Yuki Nagato from Suzumiya Haruhi. She speaks like that because she's an "alien-human interface"; in plain English, she's the mouthpiece of an incredibly intelligent and rational alien entity that cannot communicate through speech. However, there is another such interface in the series which is able to pose as an attractive and highly popular schoolgirl, exhibiting none of the "robotic" tendencies of Nagato. Why one is more convincingly human than the other is never explained.
- Fanon claims that the reason the other interface goes Ax Crazy and tries to kill Kyon is because having and showing emotions make her more unstable. While Nagato is stable because she doesn't have strong emotions.
- Miyu in Mai-HiME. It is not particularly obvious, though, and the later revelation of her being a Robot Girl has been known to take some people by surprise. In Mai-Otome, her manner of speech is more naturalistic, indicating a more favorable role overall.
- Kurau from Kurau Phantom Memory talks in a very emotionless and analytical fashion very unfitting for a twelve-year old right after she merges with the Rynax-entity. She starts talking more normally when she regains her human memories, much to the relief of her father.
- Nia from Gurren Lagann, being a princess, tends to speak in Spock Speak. Memorable is her use of "Well met" over "Hello" as a greeting. Even on her answering machine. Repeatedly lampshaded.
Comic Books
- The X-Men's Storm, as well as Magneto and Colossus (and many other minor characters) as written by Chris Claremont. Storm pretty much always speaks this way, even in other-media adaptations, though she doesn't in the live action movies.
- Lampshaded in a Spider-Man/X-Men cartoon crossover:
Storm: Power of lightning, strike again!
Spider-Man: Uh, power of web-shooters, get real sticky!
- George R. R. Martin's recurring character Haviland Tuf is averse to human contact; his habitual usage of excessively formal language helps him to maintain an acceptable emotional distance from anyone with whom he must converse — while permitting him to use biting sarcasm with complete impunity.
- In Steve Miller & Sharon Lee's Liaden Universe space operas, Liadens speak in very polite and frequently roundabout form. This is in part because the stories often draw inspiration from Edwardian romances, and partly because Liadens are a culture where the slightest insult might provoke a lethal duel, depending on the temperament of the one insulted.
- Spoof: In E.E. Smith's The Skylark of Space, Richard Seaton is a very intelligent, intuitive genius - who speaks like a 1930's caricature of someone from the Bronx. When asked about this by his then-girlfriend, he launches into a couple of paragraphs of perfectly-grammatical Spock Speak, until forcibly told to shut up by that same aforementioned girlfriend, now exasperated with him. This makes this trope Older Than Television.
- Aximili from Animorphs...when he's not in human form. When he's in human form, he's just crazy.
- It's worth noting that Ax's internal monologue is not quite as formal as his speech, though it is still clearly the thought process of someone foreign to American culture; he's actively affecting a formal tone because he believes that's how a soldier in the Andalite military should act.
- The character of Dominil in Martin Millar's "Lonely Werewolf Girl" is generally considered the most intelligent member of her family, with a double degree from Oxford. She is also considered icy and enigmatic, and when she tries to help her cousins with their band, she tells their guitarist that their stage fright is not something she can empathize with, and his reply makes her ask if he thinks she is lacking in empathy. He lampshades this by responding: "Well, yeah, if you go around saying things like 'It is not something with which I can easily empathize."
- In Battletech novels, members of the Clans make a point of not using contractions (at least in the classical sense, as several Clan-exclusive terms are at least portmanteaus if not full-on contractions). Given that most Clan characters are warriors they also use many military terms and end up using a form of Spock speak.
- The title character of F.M. Busby's Rissa Kerguelen series early on adopted a disguise with a persona including Spock Speak, and for some reason kept the speech pattern when she dropped the rest of the disguise. She was, however, perfectly capable of using contractions — if disguised as someone else.
- Nearly everybody in Manticore talks like this in the Honor Harrington series, often taking a dozen more words to get their point across than is really necessary, with absolutely flawless diction all around. It's somewhat justified in that the main characters are all either highly trained and educated starship crews, nobility, or both, but there's no excuse for them still speaking that way when, say, they've been stuck on a prison planet for a year and a half and the narration goes at length to point out how casual they are with each other.
- In the Courts of the Crimson Kings, a sci-fi novel by S.M. Stirling. The Martian language can convey a lot of information simply, but sounds formal when translated into English. Thus Your pleasantly agreeable personality contrasts in an intriguing manner with the brutish power of your appearance is actually You look macho but you're actually sweet and gentle.
- None of the characters in Deltora Quest are capable of using verbal contractions.
Live Action TV
- Spock, of course, in Star Trek The Original Series. Fascinating.
- Averted in the pilot episode, where he speaks like everyone else.
- Also, Data of Star Trek The Next Generation. Indeed, the way to tell him apart from his Evil Twin Lore was that Lore did use contractions. (Ironically, at the end of the very episode which introduced Lore, Brent Spiner flubbed one of his lines, causing Data to use a contraction.) (Or did he? It's so blatant you have to wonder if it was intentional.)
- Wil Wheaton mentions this in his episode review in Memories of the Future. Apparently Data's use of a contraction at the end of the episode was a deliberate choice made by the actor and director that was never revisited.
- Seven of Nine from Star Trek Voyager. And Tuvok, of course.
- Kai from Lexx does probably the best Spock Speak in television history, superior even to the Trope Namer. Lexx, the titular ship, does a pretty decent job of it himself, as does 790 and several other of the less human characters on this show. Pretty much the only ones who don't talk this way are the thoroughly human characters of a quite low level of knowledge about things, Stanley and Xev/Zev, the ones who are typically having things explained to them in perfect expository Spock Speak.
- K-9 and most "advanced" aliens in Doctor Who. Affirmative, Master.
- Zen, Orac, and Avon in Blakes Seven. Confirmed.
- Teal'c in Stargate SG-1. Indeed. (When Teal'c guest stars in Stargate Atlantis, Ronon is apparently the first person to ever mention Teal'c's penchant for such speech, and he is surprised to discover that he does, in fact, say "indeed" a lot.) Parodied in the series finale "Unending", when "indeed" becomes the last word ever said in the show — but this time, it's said by everyone but Teal'c.
- Lennier in Babylon 5. Informal speech would be... inappropriate.
- Notable exception: TIM in The Tomorrow People actually speaks much more naturally than many of the non-electronic advanced aliens. One of the Big Finish audios comments extensively on how unusual this is.
- Telling example: in Knight Rider, KITT does not use Spock Speak for the most part (though he does once go medieval on a hacker for compelling him to say "ain't"), nor do the vehicles from Team Knight Rider, but his Evil Twin KARR, and TKR's Evil Counterpart KRO do.
- Also, the KITT of the 2008 series engages in Spock Speak, but his patterns of speech appear to be slowly getting more natural as his AI develops.
- Anya of Buffy The Vampire Slayer developed into this, first as a consequence of being a former demon with limited knowledge of humans. Later it was revealed that she had once been an ordinary human and had always used SpockSpeak. Charitably we may assume she was an Aspie. (Her lack of understanding about mortality on the other hand...well, a thousand years is a long time.)
- Later on Angel, Illyria used this as well, though she occasionally managed to confuse others when using a longer word instead of a short, convenient one. (One humorous example was when she said she and Wesley were "no longer having intercourse." Spike, of course, assumed sexual intercourse and had a doubletake before her real meaning kicked in.)
- Parodied mercilessly in the Saturday Night Live sketch (and subsequent movie) The Coneheads.
- Grover of Sesame Street.
- In the first season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Billy, being the smart one of the group, used lots of Spock Speak, and required the use of Trini to translate what Billy said to the rest of the group. Needless to say that this stopped on the second season when the actress playing Trini left.
- Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory is like that. Just let this example speak for itself:
Sheldon: Well, I'm polymerized tree sap and you're an inorganic adhesive, so whatever verbal projectile you launch in my direction is reflected off of me, returns on its original trajectory and adheres to you.
- At least he uses contractions.
- He gets better over time.At least,he tries...Apparently,he's "getting remarkable fluency at" urban slang.
- The title character of I Dream Of Jeannie spoke with an unusual tone of voice and no contractions. She also misunderstood metaphors, but no more often than any other Literal Genie.
Tabletop Games
- Variation: The Clans, in Battletech-related properties, speak a sort of slang based on Spock Speak; for example, they use "Aff" and "Neg" (short for Affirmative and Negative) in place of "Yes" and "No". This is added to a host of Russian-derived terms and WikiWords to form an alien but comprehensible dialect of English. They have so long since forgone the use of contractions that they react to contractions as swear words.
Video Games
- Double subversion: Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2 features a robot who initially talks in Spock Speak... but when the main character asks him to speak in a more understandable way, the robot starts using Totally Radical slang. He later goes back to Spock Speak, much to the relief of both the main character and the player.
- Most of Presea's lines in Tales Of Symphonia are some variation on this trope. "I suggest that conversation while in transit impairs our rate of travel."
- Kunzite in Tales of Hearts does the same. Even in combat, where the usual poetic spell chants are replaced with stuff like "Dark weaponry charging complete. Fire!" This is because he's an actual robot Tin Man, and later, he starts declaring things along the lines of "this is my own will!" against his "rival" and the final boss.
- The Vortigaunts in Half Life 2.
- Eh, not really. The Vortigaunts share more in common with Proud Warrior Race when it comes to speech patterns than Spock Speak.
- Jugger from Advance Wars: Dual Strike uses this and Robo Speak.
- And yet very occasionally slips into more normal speech patterns, leading the player to wonder if he just does the Spock / Robo Speak because he likes to.
- Hawkeye from Fire Emblem answers everything with the same phrase: "Is that so?"
Web Comics
- Vaarsuvius, from Order Of The Stick.
- Antimony from Gunnerkrigg Court uses Spock Speak, due to a very unusual childhood. When this guest comic
 was posted, several fans complained that Annie saying "Yeah" in the first panel was out of character. However, she seems to use it less when she's at ease, around friends.
- Apparently, Annie learned it from her father, Anthony, who spoke this way when he was her age:
Donald Donlan: Hey Tony, aren't you coming for lunch?
Anthony Carver: I have matters to attend to.
Donald Donlan: Oh... okay. We'll see you later then.
James Eglamore: "I have matters to attend to." Jeez, who talks like that?
- Faye in Questionable Content, early on in the series when she's deliberately trying to conceal her southern accent, having moved from Georgia to Massachusetts to escape a personal tragedy.
- Theo in Shape Quest.
- Luca in The Meek doesn't use contractions, since his he actually speaking his third language according to Word Of God.
Western Animation
- Parodied constantly in Futurama, playing off the fact that historical records seem unusually unreliable, yet people often take them at absolute face value. For example, at a museum, an exhibit refers to "auto-mo-cars" as being constructed by "primitive robots". This is technically correct; however, the robots are revealed to be nothing more than robots dressed in primitive human dress (i.e. they're cavemen). It also refers to the car being powered by a "tank of burning fossils", mis-interpreting "fossil fuels" and "gas tank".
- Many of the alien characters on the show use Spock Speak, particularly the Nibblonians and their archnemeses the Brains.
- Starfire of Teen Titans uses a pretty classic version of Spock Speak: misplaced articles, misinterpreted puns, lack of contractions, the works.
- The reason for this being that she's both an alien speaking English as a second language (though gained through Translator Microbes), and royalty. Her sister Blackfire speaks fluent English though.
- Transformers Armada's Red Alert thankfully stops after the first use.
- In Transformers Animated, Prowl is constantly saying things like "Fascinating", "Impressive" and "Incredible" when observing organic life.
- Grizzle of Adventures in Care-a-Lot created 'the smartest robot ever' in one episode, which turned out to be a little too logical and spoke entirely using Spock Speak.
- Nicole from Sonic the Hedgehog. Like in the "Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2" and "Flight of the Navigator" examples, when in one episode Sonic insists she "Talk in English!" she starts using more slang than even Sonic. He approves.
- Mojo Jojo on The Powerpuff Girls compulsively repeats his statements, with each repetition sounding more like Spock Speak as he dredges the depths of his mental thesaurus.
Web Original
- The character of Two in Tales Of MU speaks with a variation of this: as a freed golem, she speaks fairly formally, and especially does not wish to voice any opinion or preference. In the early chapters, she had serious problems saying that she wanted anything. This can be seen in the "Two's Diary" Bonus stories, where she crosses out any line that expresses any emotion or desire. She's gotten better as the story has gone on, however.
- Another example is Two's former roommate, Dee, whose formal speech matches a formal upbringing. She also apologies frequently, at a level approaching a verbal tic.
- Survival Of The Fittest version 4's 'Bounce' speaks with excessive formality, which is possibly because English wasn't her parents' first language, although intelligence plays a part.
Real Life
- As said at the top: Some people with autism and Asperger's.
- And lawyers, because legal jargon is like that.
- With good reason, like in science you want to make sure that you're saying exactly what you mean to say, and even one word incorrectly applied on a contract can create a loophole that may cost someone millions of dollars.
- Richard Feynman told a story of how he was in Brazil (?) and couldn't remember the Portuguese word for "so", but remembered a rule where in "ly" in English becomes "mente"... so he had to use "consequentemente", giving this impression to the people he was talking to.
- Scientific journals expect to have a written form of Spock Speak in their articles, so even scientists who don't talk that way personally learn to emulate it in writing. This is obviously desirable in pursit of precision.
- Likewise, a police officer filing a formal report (or even verbally reporting to a fellow officer) will write or speak in a formal manner out of habit; rather than saying 'he wouldn't get out and started yelling at me', the officer would report that 'the suspect failed to comply and became verbally uncooperative'.
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