tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 21 09:03:27 1995
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Re: }} Klingons to Bermuda!
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: }} Klingons to Bermuda!
- Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 09:03:27 -0400
>Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 22:37:05 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "Kevin A. Geiselman, Knight Errant" <[email protected]>
>On Fri, 18 Aug 1995, Alan Anderson wrote:
>> Another common "recreation" is dancing. Unfortunately, I can't find a good
>> word for "dance" anywhere, and I can't even figure out how to describe
>> dancing succinctly using Klingon grammar.
>How about something along the lines of 'singing with your body' or
>'body's song'? <porghbom>?
Depends. Do you want to be poetic, or do you want people to understand
you?
Your proposal is a prime example of what I call a "hindsight word". It's a
coining that makes perfect sense.... once you know what it means already.
Coming upon that word with no knowledge of its meaning beforehand would
leave a reader completely clueless:
SuvwI' porghbom vItIv / I enjoyed the warrior's body-music
Oh, so you were listening to the warrior's heartbeat and bowel-sounds and
liked it? Or maybe the warrior was a human (er, Klingon) beatbox or
something and uses his/her body like a musical instrument, playing sounds
on it by tapping, etc. Or maybe you're being poetic about describing
singing, making sure I know it was by mouth. More likely I'd just be
totally confused (much as you'd be if you came across the above English
phrase with no advance knowledge of "body-music", which is in no way
specific to dance).
It's very easy to make up compounds and coinings that seem eminently
logical to the person who made them up and no-one else, without detailed
explanations. When you make up a coining try (and it's tough, but try) to
imagine a newbie coming across your word in a sentence WITHOUT access to
the inner workings of your mind and see if that person could be anything
other than bewildered.
~mark