Piccole cose inutili ma potenzialmente interessanti

[Demian]

Essendo incappato in una curiosità per me interessante, ma assolutamente fine a sé stessa, mi è venuta voglia di condividerla con altri potenziali interessati, e a quel punto ho pensato di creare un thread dedicato alla condivisione di curiosità di vario genere.

Spero che vi piaccia, ciò detto vado a incominciare:

Star Trek e la grammatica:

To boldly go where no man has gone before

This introductory text was spoken at the beginning of many Star Trek television episodes and films, from 1966 onward:

Space: The final frontier

These are the voyages of the Starship, Enterprise

Its 5 year mission

To explore strange new worlds

To seek out new life and new civilizations

To boldly go where no man has gone before

This line reinvigorated the last-lasting debate over split infinitives. These are infinitives that have an adverb between 'to' and the verb. Those grammarians who still cared about this in the 1960s complained that 'to boldly go' should have been 'to go boldly'. The debate had been simmering on and off for the best part of a century. As early as 1897, Academy magazine suggested that an insistence that split infinitives were incorrect was somewhat pedantic:

"Are our critics aware that Byron is the father of their split infinitive? 'To slowly trace', says the noble poet, 'the forest's shady scene'."

Most authorities now accept Star Trek into the grammatical fold and no longer care, or at least rarely publicly complain, about 'to boldly go'.

By 1966, people cared more about implied sexism than doubtful grammar and the show's producers received criticism for the 'no man' part of the speech. Despite some recourse to the tradition defence of the use of 'man' to mean 'human', that is, 'man embraces woman', by the time Star Trek: The Next Generation was aired, in 1987, the shows producers had opted for the more politically correct last line - "Where no one has gone before". In that series the hirsutely challenged Patrick Stewart took on the role of the Star Trek's commander and wags could hardly miss the 'to baldly go' quip at his expense.

Fonte: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/385400.html

[Demian]

Dopo molto tempo, ecco un'altra curiosità in cui mi sono imbattuto (nota: il topic è stato pensato per restare aperto a tutti, quindi non vi preoccupate del necroposting, lo scopo del thread è di presentare curiosità qualora ci s'imbatta in esse, e questo può accadere anche a distanza di molto tempo, quindi non c'è motivo per considerare esaurito l'argomento).

He-Man e Conan (la Universal denunciò la Mattel sostenendo che avesse sviluppato la sua linea di giocattoli copiando dal film Conan):

During the 1980s, rumors claimed that Conan the Barbarian was a source of inspiration for the He-Man character.

...

Sweet refuted the rumor, saying that he conceptualized and developed the He-Man/Masters of the Universe franchise in late 1980 (two years before the release of the Universal Pictures film). The toyline existed prior to the movie, beginning production in 1981 and marketing in 1982. At that time, Mattel did not have a license with Universal to make toys for the film, which resulted in Conan Properties International suing Mattel over copyright infringement, due to He-Man's similarities to Conan.

...

Mattel won the lawsuit against Conan Properties, retaining the rights over He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

Fonte: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He-Man

EDIT: Se vi chiedete cos'abbia trovato di tanto curioso in questo avvenimento, beh, il fatto che denunciare una violazione del copyright per una figura che somigli a Conan è un po' come farlo per una qualunque figura a caso che sia seminuda, muscolosa e con una spada in mano, ovvero non poche. Ciò detto, in effetti la natura dei rapporti fra Universal e Mattel all'epoca potrebbe aver reso la mossa più sensata di quanto non sembri.