tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Jun 12 06:27:45 1995

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Re: Re PetaQ

yo' aj' Lessem wrote:
> ... When you receive mail that says
> "spying government for my you are Federation data communications"(Direct
> English translation) and they mean "You are spying on my govenment
> communication transmissions from the Federation" you have to learn to be
> LENIENT and interperate with some le-way.

I agree with half of this.  One must indeed be somewhat flexible when
interpreting in order to accomodate small errors in the message.  But
one should NOT be "lenient" with the sort of gross misuse of the syntax
you give as an example.  If I received such a garbled note from ~mark
or yoDtargh, I'd laugh at the joke and congratulate them on the humor.
If I were less sure of the expertise of the sender, I'd ask for the note
to be resent with more care taken in the translation.  If I believed that
the sender's grammar was actually that atrocious, I'd probably engage in
some curse warfare: {TKD yIlaDqa' 'ej DalaDqa'taHvIS mInDu'lIj yIpoSmoH}.

-- ghunchu'wI'

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