Even those who don't watch Star Trek say "beam me up" and "highly illogical" as part of the language of popular culture. Eclipsing these perhaps is the pronounced cliche for many a victim, "He's dead, Jim." Those words in that form were first expressed by McCoy over the dead poodle in "The Enemy Within," and also appeared in "The Changeling" (Scotty) and "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" (Marvick). That makes three exact matches. In "Spectre of the Gun" he says, "Jim. He's dead" (Chekov) and in "The Man Trap" comes, "Dead, Jim" (Darnell). Let's call it a handful of times.

McCoy says "He's dead" often for disposables like in "Man Trap" (Sturgeon) or "Obsession" (Rizzo). Kirk gets it in "Amok Time" and in "Return To Tomorrow." In "Wolf in the Fold" McCoy gets both a "She's dead" (Kara the dancer) and a "He's dead" (Hengist). McCoy claims "She's dead" over Lt. Galway in "The Deadly Years" and Nona in "A Private Little War," and also the lady with the multi-colored face in "The Lights Of Zetar." In "Dagger of the Mind" Dr. Adams merits a "He's dead, Captain" as does Professor Starnes in "And the Children Shall Lead." The tricycle monster early in "Miri" only receives a "It's dead." And in "Shore Leave" McCoy receives one himself after being lanced!

Yet it's not just McCoy deadpanning. In " What Are Little Girls Made Of?" the android Brown says "He's dead" for the redshirt tossed down a bottomless pit. Boma notes "The man's dead" to secure a burial for redshirt Gaetano. In "The Menagerie" Commodore Mendez predicts Spock's career after hijacking Captain Pike as "He's dead." (Later Pike reasons before the Talosian about his mysterious fully-charged weapon, "It's dead.") And in "The Doomsday Machine" Spock declares "It's quite dead" about the planet-killer.

Kirk himself makes the "dead" call over his friend Tom Leighton in "The Conscience of the King," and his brother in "Operation Annihilate!" In "The Changeling" he explains "He's dead" about Scott to Nomad, and of course there's the hilarious "He's dead" sequence in "I, Mudd." Kirk hears it about his ship from many sources, including Finney's "It's dead!" in "Court Martial" to "It's dead, sir" in "By Any Other Name" and Scott's "We're dead, Captain" in "Arena" and "We're dead still, Captain" in "Who Mourns For Adonais?" Finally, in "A Piece of the Action" Kirk actually informs the Iotians, "They're not dead." Like that, I believe this particular phrase won't be declared dead for quite awhile!