Data Makes an Oopsie!

Posted by InThisStyle106@reddit | TNG | View on Reddit | 26 comments

Just caught this—in S7 E25, Data mistakenly uses the word "entymology" (the study of insects) when he should have used the word "etymology" when asking O'Brien about the origins of the saying "burning the midnight oil". I thought I'd been using the word "etymology" wrong for years... after verifying, turns out Data makes mistakes too.

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Lighthouse_Raven@reddit

Everyone is coming up with elaborate theories for this but consider: People don't always speak clearly, and misinformation can be spread by teachers, people in a conversation, and just about anywhere else. Data doesn't know everything automatically, he still has to learn things. So then, what if, when he first "learned" this information, it was wrong, and he just had never been corrected on it at that point?

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broooooooce@reddit

I read this as "Data Makes a Moopsy!"

Moopsy :3

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dnkroz3d@reddit

Must have been his emotion chip malfunctioning

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PastorBlinky@reddit

He also calls a fish an amphibian. There’s a decent chance he’s just a dude in makeup who faked his way into Starfleet academy.

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uberisstealingit@reddit

Garbage in, garbage out.

Seeing how data would be programmed by a multitude of learning portals, somebody could have screwed up on The Human Side. Being a machine, data could have mistaken the two or not have known the difference based on the premise garbage in, garbage out.

So ultimately, every computer has to be programmed. Which would mean it's a human error.

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BarNo3385@reddit

Possibly true for the fish / amphibian thing, especially since the classifications likely break down a bit once you're introducing xenobiology that's evolved in completely different worlds and environments.

Etymology vs Entymology is harder to forgive. If I had justify I'd put it down as a glitch between the language model producing the words and the speech engine generating the sounds. In a sense Data "misspoke" because of an error in creating the sounds.

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21_Mushroom_Cupcakes@reddit

He's really just 3 Exocomps in a trenchcoat.

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Co-llect-ive@reddit

gif

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Unit_79@reddit

When was this? I need to know!

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PastorBlinky@reddit

From: The Outrageous Okona

DATA: Mister Comic, I wish to know what is funny.

COMIC: Funny? I don’t know. It’s a matter of opinion, I guess. Tip O’Neill in a dress? Some people say words that end with a K are funny. A briefcase that looks like a fish. Personally I find that hysterical.

DATA: Tip O’Neill. Accessing. Twentieth century male, politician, overweight, wearing female clothing, carrying a valise that looks like a fish. So, the juxtaposition of gender and an amphibian briefcase is funny.

COMIC: Well, I think whatever makes you laugh is funny.

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Unit_79@reddit

Of course! Thank you, I can picture it perfectly now. God. What a dummy!

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stenmarkv@reddit

Obviously there is a program devised to make him sound more human by being incorrect occasionally.

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somebuddyx@reddit

And Chief O'Brien isn't even a Native American.

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Wabbit65@reddit

Maybe they're still having AI hallucination issues in the 24th century.

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dars1905@reddit

The word was changed in the year 2156 after the 2nd Academia Wars.

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tob007@reddit

the microaggressions really kicked things off, it was a whole thing.

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jtrades69@reddit

there are a lot of weird subroutines. switching words might be one to make him seem more hoo-mann.

he can say its as a possessive but not it's. i'm sure he knows who emmanuel kant is but he can't say can't.

cats plural, ok. that's the cat's toy, not ok.

climb the ladder: good. i'm over here: bad.

but if he can replicate picard's voice, or anyone's, shouldn't he be able to make contractions when reading lines from a play?

i think soongh had an issue with floating ' in his code, messing up the next lines of code.

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