[Rachmaninoff]

For some reason I decided to grab the scripts off of chakoteya.net and do some linguistic analysis about how much different characters are speaking. I'll post a link to my findings once they're finished, but thought I'd pose some trivia questions as teasers. Interested to hear your guesses on any of these...

My analysis covers the TV episodes of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT. No films (yet), no NuTrek.

1. Which single character speaks the most words in all of Star Trek?

2. There is only one episode in all of the shows where a single character says more than 50% of the words. Which character, and which episode?

3. In virtually every episode of TOS, Kirk speaks more words than any other character. "The Cage" is one exception; which two episodes are the other exceptions?

4. There is one TNG episode where Picard only says six words. Which one is it?

5. Out of all the shows, which (one-hour) episode has the most number of total words spoken? the least?

6. In each show, the captain is the "wordiest" character -- but there is significant variation in how much they speak relative to the other characters. Rank the five captains (Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer) in terms of the percentage of total words spoken on their respective shows.

[Kaiser]

I'll think about it and edit it more answers later, but first ideas:

1. (still trying to remember...) So, I seem to remember that Picard was in every episode of Trek, and had an appearance in DS9, so I'll give it to him purely based on that. Janeway talked a lot in the few things of Voyager I've seen, but it was Sevensevensevenseven in a few of the later episodes; DS9 simply had more (minor) characters that got screen time that I think Sisko and Janeway don't beat Picard here.

2. Probably something like Picard in The Inner Light where you have a single character taken out of the environment. Is it 50% of ALL the dialogue, or among the dialogue spoken by the main cast?

3. I guess one might be The Menagerie. No idea about the other.
another edit: What's the one episode with Gary Seven? That didn't have too much screen time for the regular cast, iirc.

4. Thine Own Self. I think I read that bit of trivia once.

5. Maybe The Measure of a Man. Some courtroom-style/bottle episode. The one with the Exocomp? Far Beyond the Stars in another one that comes to mind.

6. No idea. I haven't seen a lot of Voyager, almost nothing of Enterprise, and the TOS episodes are largely childhood/teenage memories. Kirk>Picard>Archer(?)>Sisko>Janeway?

another edit: Done thinking for today.
Good stuff @Rachmaninoff

[Rachmaninoff]

On #2: more than 50% of ALL the dialogue, not just main cast.

On #3: I forgot to exclude "The Cage", so I suppose there are actually 3. But there are 2 others!

One other bonus question: there is an episode where the "main cast" (defined as people listed in the intro music) collectively only speak 19% of the dialogue. Which one?

[Danny]

1). Picard
2). Data. Data's Day
3). My TOS knowledge is lacking
4). In Theory (the one that Patrick Stewart directs)
5). Will come back to
6). Picard, Kirk, Sisko, Janeway, Archer
Bonus). The TNG episode Lower Decks?

[The Guardian]

1. Picard is my guess...

2. I have to imagine an episode where a character was all alone doing logs and whatnot. Seven in "One"?

3. "The Menagerie" immediately comes to mind as it's based on "The Cage." I'd also guess "The Tholian Web."

4. "Birthright, pt. 2"?

5. I'm sure I'm wrong, but I keep thinking of the password scene in "Brothers."

6. Kirk, Archer, Janeway, Picard, Sisko

Bonus. "Lower Decks"?

[GooeyChewie]

I’m only going to guess on one, but…

1. Worf? Since he is a main character in two shows and four movies, I could see him having the most words.

[Takket]

1. Which single character speaks the most words in all of Star Trek?

Picard

2. There is only one episode in all of the shows where a single character says more than 50% of the words. Which character, and which episode?

Sisko, ITPM

3. In virtually every episode of TOS, Kirk speaks more words than any other character. "The Cage" is one exception; which two episodes are the other exceptions?

Gallileo 7, Tholian Web

4. There is one TNG episode where Picard only says six words. Which one is it?

Birthright, Part II

5. Out of all the shows, which (one-hour) episode has the most number of total words spoken? the least?

least: One (Voyager)
Most: The Sound of her Voice (DS9)

6. In each show, the captain is the "wordiest" character -- but there is significant variation in how much they speak relative to the other characters. Rank the five captains (Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer) in terms of the percentage of total words spoken on their respective shows.

Kirk, Janeway, Picard, Sisko, Archer

[commdecker]

Quick guesses:
1. Worf
2. Duet, Kira
3. The Tholian Web and The Paradise Syndrome
4. Frame of Mind
5. Most: Pen Pals. Least: The Empath
6. most to least: Kirk, Picard, Archer, Janeway, Sisko
Bonus: It's only a paper moon

[Rachmaninoff]

Some great guesses so far! And some of them are right. Will aim to post final answers this weekend along with a fuller analysis. So there's still some time if you want to guess!

Nobody has yet picked a correct answer for #5 (episode with overall most/least words) or the bonus question (quiet main cast), so I'll leave some hints:

Most words:

It is NOT a famous "talker" of an episode with grand speeches. This one surprised me.

Least words:

Also not a famous episode, but it makes sense. The relative lack of words is closely related to the plot.

Episode where the main crew doesn't say much:

Very interestingly, this is from a show NOT known for its guest casts; and the guest cast isn't best known from this show.

[commdecker]

New guess for the bonus:

Pathfinder

[Rachmaninoff]

Thanks for your patience, everyone!

I have completed my analysis and posted it on my website. I also found a significant bug in the earlier version of my word-counting script, so some of my question prompts were not quite correct -- sorry! I have answered them below in the best spirit I could.

1. Which single character speaks the most words in all of Star Trek?

Picard speaks 145,220 words (144,875 of them in TNG).

2. There is only one episode in all of the shows where a single character says more than 50% of the words. Which character, and which episode?

This statement was not quite true! The episode I had in mind was Whispers, where O'Brien says 59% of the words. Since fixing the errors in my analysis, I've learned that Waltz (53% Dukat) and Who Mourns for Morn? (50% Quark) also both count from DS9 (and curiously, are consecutive episodes); Latent Image (51% The Doctor) from Voyager; and Doctor's Orders (57% Phlox) from Enterprise also would be correct answers.

3. In virtually every episode of TOS, Kirk speaks more words than any other character. "The Cage" is one exception; which two episodes are the other exceptions?

The ones I had in mind were The Galileo Seven and The Tholian Web. Kirk actually says quite a bit in The Menagerie Part I, but not Part II, so the latter would also have been a correct answer to my original question. After fixing my code I discovered that Amok Time and All Our Yesterdays are also episodes where Spock says more than Kirk; and there are a few other episodes where a memorable guest character says the most of all (Trelane, Mudd, Roger Korby, Garth).

4. There is one TNG episode where Picard only says six words. Which one is it?

Thine Own Self: "What's the last thing you remember?"

5. Out of all the shows, which (one-hour) episode has the most number of total words spoken? the least?

Tied for most: DS9's Homefront and Voyager's Worst Case Scenario, both with 5968 words.

Least: ENT's Dawn, with only 2062 words spoken.

On the whole, Enterprise episodes had significantly less dialogue than the other shows. Other particularly terse ENT episodes are Extinction (2445), Impulse (2665), and Acquisition (2756).

6. In each show, the captain is the "wordiest" character -- but there is significant variation in how much they speak relative to the other characters. Rank the five captains (Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer) in terms of the percentage of total words spoken on their respective shows.

Kirk (29%), Archer (24%), Picard (19%), Janeway (17%), Sisko (13%)

DS9 really had an ensemble cast, and some of the analysis on the page above go into more detail.

One other bonus question: there is an episode where the "main cast" (defined as people listed in the intro music) collectively only speak 19% of the dialogue. Which one?

The answer is indeed VOY: Pathfinder! Other contenders are TNG: Half a Life (24%), DS9: Valiant (26%), and ENT: Carbon Creek (27%)

I would also accept DS9: Far Beyond the Stars, depending on whether you count those characters as "the main cast" or not.

TOS also has 3 episodes kind of like this, depending on whether you count The Cage, The Menagerie, and Assignment: Earth (none of which are really TOS stories). Among true TOS stories, the closest is What Are Little Girls Made Of? (35%)

[Takket]

Half a Life? that is really surprising. I know Timicin and Lwaxana spend a lot of time together but that episode takes place on the ship, and timicin works a lot in engineering...........

[Rachmaninoff]

It's true! Here's the breakdown of words by character in that episode... the main cast is hanging around a lot but they don't say much of substance.

Lwaxana: 1554
Timicin: 1430
Picard: 376
Troi: 178
Dara: 152
B'Tardat: 147
La Forge: 159
Data: 144
Riker: 100
Worf: 74
Crusher: 20
O'Brien: 16
Ensign: 2