I vaguely remember a TNG* episode in which humans encounter an alien race that found our language too ...inaccurate, and spent a lot of time going over each word and sentence, to precisely define its meaning.
* Was it TNG or am I dreaming?
*edit: Thank you everyone, but it wasn't "Darmok". The humans and the aliens were working, for a long time, on a treaty of sorts because the human language was so confusing and ambiguous and they had to go over every small details, over and over ...
Need to re-watch TNG
Was it the episode in which the Federation needed more time to evacuate a colony and the other party refused because the treaty left no room to interpret it like that?
If I remember correctly, the crew found a loophole using a rule that allowed them to ask for arbitration - they asked for an arbiter from a species that was currently in rather long hibernation.
“Darmok” is Internet favorite, about a species which language is exclusively in analogy that the translator could not be set up, and they decide to kidnap Picard to establish vocabulary over a campfire.
There were couple episodes in Voyager in which aliens deem humans interesting but lesser, and tries to experiment or study on crews. One that I remember ended up in a ship self destruction, in another the doctor leaving his copy. As to why they didn’t simply ask Borg for a zipped archive, I don’t know.
The Dominion commanders throughout DS9 must have made similar remarks, and so should Cardassians have. Q would outright say so in spite, corrupted Data might. Maybe combination of those? Or maybe I’m just a suboptimal Trekkie :p
I'm not them, but this is it. Their government is called the Sheliak Corporate, and Picard finds in the overly long treaty a clause about resolving disputes needing a third party - and names a species currently in hibernation. So they give in and let him have the much shorter time he's being asking for, for an evacuation.
I believe I've seen every TNG episode at least once, and that's not ringing any bells. Maybe it was an original series episode? Despite my best efforts, I haven't been able to make it through more than one or two episodes of the original.
* Was it TNG or am I dreaming?
*edit: Thank you everyone, but it wasn't "Darmok". The humans and the aliens were working, for a long time, on a treaty of sorts because the human language was so confusing and ambiguous and they had to go over every small details, over and over ... Need to re-watch TNG