Only an aspiring Trekkie over here. Can you explain this line? I don't follow.
Uhura’s response, “sorry, neither,” is to the other meanings of those words. She is saying that she is neither fair—“pale-skinned”—nor a maiden—a “virgin.”
I always took it as she needed neither protection nor was she a fair maiden.
Both explanations are pretty great. She was a treasure.
But you need to protect treasure!
“Fair” in the context of this phrase is meant to convey “beautiful” but literally meant “light or pale skinned.”
“Maiden” is meant to convey “young woman,” but literally meant “virgin” (as in “maiden voyage”).
literally meant “virgin” (as in “maiden voyage”)
I can't believe I never made this connection before.
I learned this wrt romeo and juliet, maidenhead is the hymen or virginity (maidenhood?)
For reference the line in Romeo and Juliet was
Ay, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads.
Take it in what sense thou wilt.How did Bill get that past the censors?!
It's amazing how far a little royal patronage can get you.
On horseback, mainly.
It's hilarious how Shakespeare's are seen in modern times considering what they were originally. They're full of dirty jokes and the accent they were originally performed in sounded nothing like the "modern" Received Pronunciation used today.
Do you happen to know where to find whole plays done in the original pronunciation? I'm not exactly bad at finding things on the internet, but I can't find any of Shakespeare's plays in their original pronunciation, or more than a tiny bit of Chaucer's Canterbury tales in spoken middle English.
They'd never heard him tell a joke before.
Neither had the maiden.
Fair can mean pale-skinned and maiden can mean virgin.
There was a short lived cartoon series between the last episode of TOS and the Motion Picture.
In one episode all the males are hypnotised by an alien creature, and the women have to save them.
The line was 'This is Lieutenant Uhura, I am in command of the Enterprise.'
The ad lib that was cut was '...at last.'
I didn't know that line was cut. It would have been so appropriate!
She was already suspicious from the very beginning. When Scotty got weird and started singing... the super creepy expression he had on his face. Jfc
She handled it perfectly
Ominous Uhura face "Soon."
The Naked Time, I just watched this episode yesterday. (New fan here, watching for the first time). SPOCK WAS AWESOME.
Oh my . . .
Why would this need to be snuck passed the censors?
It’s funny, but it’s a fairly benign line.
It seems odd to me too. Even if it was 60 years ago. "Fair", she's dark skinned, so not "fair" in that sense. And he's using "maiden" in the sense of "a girl or young woman", which she also isn't. Yes, you could also see a secondary meaning of "maiden" as in "virgin", but would the censors really block something that was only mildly sexual and only when taken out of context? Was "maiden" in the 60s seen as a much more sexual term or something?
Yes
Someone is almost as horny for Uhura as Mariner
Well, it's certainly not Sulu. Oh my!
Why would it have been censored?
“Maiden” used to imply virginity and “fair” implies light, usually white, skin. Doesn’t take a leap to figure out why censors in the 60s would have found it objectionable to call attention to that.
I wasn't even thinking about words like maiden having "deeper" meaning back then ... Thanks!
That’s why the term “Old Maid” used to be such a biting insult as well.
Doesn't it still mean virgin? If not what does it mean? Non-native speaker here.
Nowadays 'maiden' can just mean 'young woman'.
Oooh! Now I get it!
I was hoping someone in the comments would have linked to the scene but I will instead: https://youtu.be/M58aP5DtNqY?t=165
Shirtless Sulu can't harm you; he isn't real---
She was a gigastacy. 
Star Trek memes and shitposts
Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.