tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Apr 18 06:15:58 1995
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Re: subgenius
>Date: Fri, 14 Apr 1995 15:27:00 -0400
>Originator: [email protected]
>From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
>According to Silauren, Half-Elven:
>>
>>
>> myself and a friend of mine (who doesn't read this list, otherwise he'd
>> post it himself) are looking for a translation of "subgenius" into
>> Klingon. has anyone a suggestion?
>>
>> (chay' *subgenius* vIjatlhlaH?)
>>
>> --naQ'avwI'
>Well, I'm not sure I know exactly what the English word means.
>I can find "subgenus" in my English dictionary, but not
>"subgenius". If you mean "smart person, but not quite a
>genius", or "minor genius" then I'd say {wIghHom}. If there is
>some sense of pretense going on, of course {wIghqoq} is an
>option. Are either of these close enough?
One point to bear in mind here is that "subgenius" in the sense originally
taken for the Church of that name, I think, used "genius" in its original
sense, as a guardian spirit. Or did it?
You're basically running into the orangutan problem: what's the word in
English for "orangutan"? There isn't one; it had to steal the word from
somewhere else. Or leprechaun... Don't expect Klingon to have a word for
every last concept; no language does.
~mark