#these tribes have been deprived of some fantastic slang

[allthatmay]

I think one of my favourite (??) quirks of sci-fi is when the main characters go to a small tribe or village on another planet and all the people there speak incredibly formally and without any particular vernacular. I know it's supposed to show they're people of intellect and dignity or whatever (and I'm not going to go into the racial implications of that) but it sounds so stilted. They don't even use contractions!!! You couldn't pry my wouldn'ts, couldn'ts and shouldn'ts from my cold, dead fingers.