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"Why is any object we don't understand always called a "thing"?!"

Thing was a term that described an unknown entity, an inanimate object, or any physical object that was not considered to be a person. It could be used to note an item that had no known proper name, as a placeholder for an object that one could not recall the name of, or a term expressing disdain/disrespect for that which one was referring to.

In 2151, Commander Trip Tucker described a bug on the planet Archer IV as a "scorpion thing." (ENT: "Strange New World")

In 2254, Doctor Phil Boyce said to Captain Christopher Pike that a man would tell things to a bartender that he would never tell to a Doctor. (TOS: "The Cage")

In 2259, La'an Noonien-Singh noted that the Federation taught that if a way was found to empathize with an enemy then one day they could become friends. She considered this wrong, because she believed some things in the universe, such as the Gorn, were evil. (SNW: "Memento Mori")

In 2266, an android with Doctor Roger Korby's consciousness assured Christine Chapel that he did not and could not love Andrea, another android, saying "A thing is not a woman." (TOS: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?")

In 2267, a spore infected Elias Sandoval described his settlement on the planet Omicron Ceti III as having a simple philosophy where people returned to a less complicated life with few mechanical things, no vehicles, and no weapons. (TOS: "This Side of Paradise")

In the 2270s, James T. Kirk requested that Leonard McCoy to be assigned to the USS Enterprise again. When McCoy protested, Kirk began to explain, "Bones, there's a 'thing' out there..", to which McCoy retorted, "Why is any object we don't understand always called a 'thing'?" (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

In 2364, the Ligonians were noted for their respect for patience which could be seen in the precise, ritualistic way they did things. (TNG: "Code of Honor")

That same year, Captain Jean-Luc Picard claimed that a lot had changed in the past three-hundred years, that people were no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. (TNG: "The Neutral Zone")

Later that year, despite the holographic Minuet being a computer-generated image, the things she said and thought were among her aspects which seemed so real to William T. Riker. (TNG: "11001001")

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