Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of the word “conn”? I think I first heard the word while watching Star Trek: “Number One, you have the conn.” Recently, the word has caught on around the office and the question “Who has the conn?” will often be heard. Sadly, most have never seen the word spelled, so they invariably will type “Who has the con”? I guess a second question would be which is preferred, “conn” or “con”? –Andy.
Are you sure about that? I always thought it was “Mister Sulu, you have the conn,” and that Number One was the actor you’d never seen before who beamed down to Altair Four with Kirk and Spock and then got eaten by a giant clam.
To “have the conn” means to be in charge or have the power of command. I tend to associate the term with movies made from Tom Clancy novels and similar he-man fare, so it’s a bit difficult to imagine “Who has the conn?” being widely used in any office where you’re not required to salute your boss. On the other hand, I’ve been working at home for many years, so maybe I’m unaware of a recent militarization of office life. I can’t say I’d be surprised, but I hope this doesn’t mean I have to buy little uniforms for the cats.
“Conn,” meaning the power to metaphorically steer the course of an endeavor or enterprise, comes from the literal use of that power. When “conn” (in the form “cun”) first appeared in English in the 17th century as a verb, it meant “to direct the steering or course of a ship,” usually from the bridge of the ship or its equivalent. Obviously, the captain of a ship has the primary responsibility for “conning” the vessel, but often delegates the “conn” (the noun appeared in the early 19th century) to subordinate officers. Early battleships actually had elevated “conning towers,” armored to protect the captain, et al., but today the same functions are usually carried out from a “conning station” on the ship’s bridge.
For a term redolent of the high seas and naval battles of yore, “conn” has a remarkably tame origin. “Conn” apparently arose as a variant form of the verb “cond,” also meaning “to direct the steering of a ship,” which in turn derived from the obsolete verb “condue,” meaning “to conduct or guide.” As you might suspect, “condue” itself ultimately harks back to the Latin “conducere” (to lead or guide), which also gave us our modern English “conduct.”
I assumed that “con” was short for “console”. But, seeing as how Star Trek pretty faithfully borrows from nautical terminology, this makes complete sense. By the way, “Number One” refers to the first officer onboard the Enterprise from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Yes, I am a geek.
Being a potentially older geek, I recalled Number One first being used to refer to Captian Christopher Pike’s first officer. This occured in “The Menagerie” episodes as a flash back.
In a complete OT:
I also found out the woman who played that part also played that part in the original un-aired pilot and was cast as Nurse Chapel in the first series. The actress, Majel Barrett, was the computer voice for many episodes in the original and NG. She was also married to Gene Roddenberry from ‘69 until his death in ‘91.
As a former submariner, and Quartermaster, I am intimately aquainted with this term (a QM in the Navy deals with navigation– http://www.qmss.com) .
Underway, the Officer of the Deck (OOD) is the Captain’s representative on watch, responsible for and overseeing everything that happens on board during his period of duty (watch). The person that has the conn, on the other hand, is responsible only for the movement of the ship, giving orders to the helmsman and consulting with the QM on watch as to what course and speed to steer so as to get where they’re going. The OOD can, and often does, have the conn as well: he will announce it to the control room (sub)/bridge (surface ship): “This is Lt. Jones, I have the Deck and the Conn.” The conn can be delegated to a junior officer for convenience or training: “This is Lt. Jones, and I have the Deck; Ensign Pulver has the Conn.” Pulver can then give orders to the helmsman (or rather, if he does give a helm order, now the helm will listen and obey it!).
Little niceties: the Captain can give a helm order, and in so doing automatically assumes the conn. He has to formally give it back to the OOD when he’s done playing. If you saw “Hunt For Red October,” you saw how it usually works: the Captain will tell the OOD what to do, and the OOD, as the conning officer, will actually give the order to the helmsman.
All this is part of the watch-to-watch chain of command, which is formalized so that no confusion results from random people walking by giving contradictory orders.
As for “Number One,” I believe, from my novel reading, that is a British Navy nickname for the second-in-command, what the USN calls the Executive Officer or XO (the Captain is called Commanding Officer or CO).
This was very informative. I got the definition I needed for having the conn, plus I was entertained along the voyage. Just a few things to add. Spock was “Number One” and the guy who was eaten by a clam was most likely to be someone named Ensign Sepulveda who was never seen again. And I found it interesting that Majel went from Number One to Nurse Chapel, and eventually Doctor Chapel. A medical officer is likely the only one who can outrank the Captain, so it was possible for her to be promoted from Number One to Nurse (in the future service)… even if it wasn’t the same character.
Thank you muchly!! I am watching the brand new “STAR TREK” (2009) on Blu-ray and heard the phrase that I have grown so familiar with, “Chekov, (or fill in the name) you have the COMM”. Through all these years, from the first episodes of the original Star Trek, I have always though the word being used was “COMM”, meaning COMMand!! However, this time I have the subtitles turned on and saw the word, “Conn”. I couldn’t believe that all these years I was getting it wrong, and worse still, I couldn’t think of what “CONN” could mean? Control? Nope…only one “n”. I am amazed that I can turn from my laptop to my desktop, and type in the words “Star”, “Trek” and “Conn” in Google, and I immediately find my answer on your marvelous website!! I can’t imagine a world without Google and billions of websites like yours, where answers to just about any question, can be answered in the click of a mouse (or is that a blink of the eye?)!! Geeze! Thanks again…Joe
Wow – I 2nd what Joe S said, it’s amazing that I can stumble upon this info too, even though it’s several mos later (well, actually several yrs later from when it began).
And I pretty much went thru the same process as Joe…watching Star Trek movie on dvd, and I wasn’t sure if they said comm (which is what I thought it should be) or conn, so I turned on the captions and saw that it was “conn” and was totally surprised.
So thanks all for the info, and now I know it’s “conn” (not comm).
Ciao, Becca
In watching Naval movies ie Hunt for Red October, I inferred the word ‘con’ to be short for ‘control’ ie the xo (executive officer) has the con or control.
in reference with becca s and joe s—-ME TOO ME TOO….