I’ve just been watching an episodeof Star Trek Deep Space 9. I was puzzled by the following exchange
Has anyone ever heard this expression, outside of that episode? It is unfamiliar to me. What is the story behind it? Was there really a famous ambassador from Minicoy? Not one that I’ve heard of. If he’s real, who was he.
Maybe they made it up for the episode, but that would be unusual. When Human characters in Star Trek talk about an old Earth saying, it’s usually a real one, that the audience would know.
I tried searching for it, but all the links led back to the episode.
This question is about the expression, not a discussion of the episode.
If you think a thread should be moved, reporting the post is better than making a request in the thread.
In any case, since this is a query about the source of the quote rather than the episode, GQ is appropriate.
Given that Minocoy is a small, obscure island in the Indian Ocean, I doubt it ever had an ambassador of any note, and it’s pretty likely that the saying was made up for the show.
I wholly agree and the suggestion itself was highly inappropriate and should itself be removed.
I apologize that it took me 5 years to find the source!
The phrase would probably have been used in films of the 30s and 40s- but nevertheless, I had heard the phrase and not just from the mouth of “The Sisko” in Deep Space Nine. Given the political and historical allegories in the overall storyline in that show, it was a great use of the phrase- The Sisko was basically telling Minister Jaro/Nixon that he was a bag of Hot Air- and that was also appropriate due to Jaro’s later revealed association with Vedek Winn/Ratchet and that he was in fact the guy who started “The Circle” - the episode was actually carried over from events in the 2nd episode of season 1, “Past Prologue” where the Cardsssians allow members of the “Kohn-Mah” to escape- and The Circle was populated with people of the same strict isolationist values as the Kohn-Mah.
So in fact The Siskos use of the phrase is very clever writing, and a hint of things to come later in the series- Vedek/Kai Winn was a religious leader who used the office for political gain.
Actually, looking at my first link it appears someone just kind of added the quote from DS9 without verifying its origin. Maybe it was made up for that episode, but taking into consideration that Minicoy is a very hot place. It is also a place where an ancient language has been lost with the death of the last person to use it.
There’s nothing in Google Books for such a saying. My guess is that the writer wanted a real but virtually unknown location to stick into a saying and found Minicoy.