Silly TREK Swifties

by Laura Goodwin

A TOM SWIFTY is a humorous form of wordplay that was inspired by the fictional character Tom Swift. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, 1st edition (1966) defines a "Tom Swifty" as: a play on words that follows an unvarying pattern and relies for its humor on a punning relationship between the way an adverb describes a speaker and at the same time refers significantly to the import of the speaker's statement, as in "I know who turned off the lights," Tom hinted darkly. [named after a narrative mannerism characteristic of the Tom Swift American series of adventure novels for boys]

Here, I have taken some fine old Tom Swifties and updated them.


Enemy Within:  "It's normal to have two personalities in one" McCoy said frankly.

Operation Annihilate!:  "There are approximately one-million, five hundred and twenty-six thousand individuals in the swarm." Spock recounted.

Shore Leave:  "So this weird planet is really a sophisticated amusement park?  Shore leave for everybody!" Kirk said playfully.

Empath: "Here's a woman who's completely mute!"  McCoy said dumbfoundedly.

Patterns Of Force:  "Forward... march!  "Ein, zwei, drei, fünf," said Kirk fearlessly.

All Our Yesterdays:  "I'm vegetarian, but in this frozen climate I'm forced to eat meat" Spock said fruitlessly.

Catspaw:  "This funny-looking guy with the magic wand must be our host" Kirk guessed.

Piece Of The Action:  "In fizzbin, you only use diamonds, clubs and spades" said Kirk heartlessly.

Where No Man Has Gone Before:  "Gary Mitchell kidnapped Elizabeth Dehner" said Kirk mistakenly.

Is There In Truth No Beauty:  "I barely caught a glimpse of Kollos"  Spock peeped.

What Are Little Girls Made Of?:  "Both me and my android double are naked!" Kirk rebuffed.

This Side Of Paradise:  "I inhaled spores from that strange plant!" Spock snorted.

Wrath Of Khan:  "I suppose I'll have to get used to wearing reading glasses" Kirk speculated.

Amok Time:  "I made this Plomeek soup by hand, from scratch"  Nurse Chapel said uncannily.

Naked Time:  "One Irishman is as good as two of anybody else" said Riley wryly.

City On The Edge Of Forever:  "Miss Keeler, look at that really bright star up there"  Kirk said seriously.

Journey To Babel:  "The doctor had to remove my left ventricle" Sarek said half-heartedly.

Conscience Of The King:  "Sure, there's room aboard for you and your whole theater troop" Kirk admitted.

Immunity Syndrome:  "Aye, Captain, I fired the probe"  Sulu assented.

Where No Man Has Gone Before: "I finally got around to reading longhair stuff like Voltaire" Mitchell said candidly.

Dagger Of The Mind:  "This therapeutic chair is supposedly only used to reform violent criminals."  Dr. Helen Noel said conceitedly.

Who Mourns For Adonais?:  "The day of Greek deities is over" Kirk deadpanned.

Devil In The Dark:  "It sure is dark down here in these tunnels"  Kirk said delightedly.

Space Seed:  "I'm going to paint a portrait of Khan"  Marla McGivers decided easily.

Tomorrow Is Yesterday:  "At the last possible second, I hit the ejector-seat button"  Captain Christopher explained.

Trouble With Tribbles:  "Captain, can I go back to my quarters and read my technical journals yet?"  Scotty asked periodically.

Plato's Stepchildren:  "They took away our trousers and forced us to wear these revealing, short tunics" Kirk said expansively.

Devil In The Dark:  "We're going to help the Horta to protect her eggs"  Kirk said honestly.

The Naked Time:  "Spock... why, at the peak of the crisis, are we locked alone in a room together, slapping each other around like a couple of hysterical girls and bitching about relationship issues?"  Kirk queried.

Piece Of The Action:  "The radio reception has suddenly improved" Uhura said ecstatically.

The Deadly Years:  "I'm losing my hair!"  old Kirk bawled.

Spock's Brain:  "I seem, among things, to be circulating air like crazy" Spock said fanatically.

The Enemy Within:  "We've got to keep this fire burning, no matter what!" Sulu bellowed.

Mudd's Women:  "This Rigillian wind storm is something awful!"  Kirk blustered.

City On The Edge Of Forever:  "My friend and I stole these clothes" Kirk corroborated.

Shore Leave:  "Forget that lady android, I'm going to conjure up Finnegan again" said Kirk ruthlessly.

Who Mourns For Adonais?:  "Apollo went from being human-sized to being three stories high" Kirk said gruesomely.

Final Frontier:  "I like to go camping with you, Spock"  Kirk said intently.

Devil In the Dark: "Our odds are approximately 3.14159265 to one" Spock said piously.

Day Of The Dove: "Beautiful claymore, but it wants sharpening" Mr. Scott stated bluntly.

The Apple: "What delicious fruit!" Kirk applauded.

Taste Of Armageddon: "Are you all governors?" Kirk asked, bored.


All site contents Copyright L. Goodwin 1990 - 2004

Back to details

Back to SSTO