Talk: Pah-wraith

You know, there is an article about Pah-wraiths, but not Pah? Isn't that just a travesty? I wish I knew more about it... What was that spiritual mind meld the bajorans used to do? Jeshii 14:11, 19 Aug 2005 (UTC)

See pagh. Tough Little Ship 14:13, 19 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Category:Group instead

Shouldn't this article be categorized under "Groups" instead of species? DS9 seemed to suggest that the pah-wraiths and Prophets were two sides of the same coin. --202.76.147.1 05:48, August 20, 2010 (UTC)

Spelling

Shouldn't this page be renamed? Ron Moore, when asked (link), indicated that the proper spelling was "Pagh-wraiths." This makes a lot more sense, since it ties in with the concept of "pagh" that was part of the Bajoran religion since the start of the show. 98.213.54.68 04:21, November 1, 2011 (UTC)

We use the script spelling. In the scripts, it was consistently written "Pah-wraith":

–Cleanse ^{( talk | contribs )} 04:55, November 1, 2011 (UTC)

And the script for Back to the Future spelled "gigawatt" as "jigowatt". Doesn't mean that's how it's actually spelled. Scripts often spell things the way the writers want them to be pronounced, to reduce confusion (and it's not difficult to imagine a word like "pagh" causing guest actors to be confused about how they should pronounce it).

If you look at that Ron Moore quote, he says that it should be spelled 'pagh' regardless of how it appears in the script. I'd consider the word of an actual member of the writing staff to have more weight than what happens to be in a piece of paper which the audience wasn't intended to see. 'Pagh' also makes much more sense in terms of story logic, since characters have been using it to refer to the soul/spirit ever since the first episode of the show. 98.213.54.68 01:00, June 10, 2012 (UTC)

Maybe there are possible variations as to how it is spelled, but falling back to the script provides a way to settle the issue when the spelling of a word is not shown in canon. Variations in pronunciation or spelling can be discussed as Background information. 31dot 01:13, June 10, 2012 (UTC)

But the scripts are not really consistent on this either. "Emissary" used the spelling "pagh", as did many other scripts, and the "pagh-wraith" idea is obviously based on the "pagh" word for the Bajoran lifeforce.

If this article is to be named as it is, then the page for "pagh" should be renamed to "pah" for consistency (not that I would recommend doing that). 98.213.54.68 05:43, August 10, 2012 (UTC)

98.213.54.68, keep in mind that Star Trek scripts (including most of the ones I linked above) have pronunciation guides for the unusual and alien words. In a number of the ones mentioned, the guide says that "Pah-wraith" is to be pronounced "PAW-rayth". So if they were really concerned about only the sound, they would have used that.

The third paragraph of "Background information" already handles the issue properly from Memory Alpha's perspective.–Cleanse ^{( talk | contribs )} 01:31, June 10, 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it points out that both Wolfe (the guy who came up with the creatures in the first place) and Moore said that "pah" was a misspelling, but we're going with it anyway because of the way it's spelled (sometimes) in the scripts, which aren't even intended for the audience to see. Great. 98.213.54.68 05:43, August 10, 2012 (UTC)

Comments by production staff do not override the more widely used spelling in the scripts. If they had wanted it spelled a certain way, they should have made sure that it was. The Background section already deals with the spelling in the correct manner. If you like, you can go through the relevant scripts and see if one spelling was used more than another- though it looks like Cleanse did that already. 31dot (talk) 08:33, August 10, 2012 (UTC)

Again, I'd like to re-iterate that "Pah-wraith" was used in every single script, and "Pagh-wraith" was used in zero. "Pagh" (the concept) and "Pah-wraith" (the entities) are different things, and there's no reason the latter has to be spelled like the former. Similar yes, but in real languages differences crop up. (Think of constructions such as the US English "judge" and "judgment") Also, have a look at [9] by RDM. Note the existence of both "Pagh" and "Pah-wraith" in the pronunciation guide right next to each other.

RDM stated that they'd used both spellings in the scripts. Therefore, if "Pah-wraith" were used every single time, the only logical explanation would be that the writers did not intend "pagh" to be separate from the first syllable of "pa[g]h-wraiths." This seems obvious anyway, but particularly in light of RDM's comments, there's really no other way to read it. 98.213.54.68 19:52, August 16, 2012 (UTC)

So yes, I'd take the clear distinction consistently applied in practice when writing the shows over some after the fact musings of the writers.–Cleanse ^{( talk | contribs )} 08:58, August 10, 2012 (UTC)

But the scripts were not meant to be viewed by the audience; they were for the cast and crew only. It seems silly to me to be attempting to guess the writers' intentions scripts when the writers have plainly told us their intentions from their own mouths (or keyboards, as it were). And one of those writers, RDM, even spelled out that the spelling should be one way, even though they used another spelling in the scripts. I don't know how much more straightforward it can get than that. 98.213.54.68 19:49, August 16, 2012 (UTC)