tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 07 08:54:35 1996
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Re: petaQ
- From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: petaQ
- Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 11:54:30 -0400 (EDT)
- In-reply-to: <[email protected]> (message from Paul Duke onTue, 6 Aug 1996 21:14:53 -0700)
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>Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 21:14:53 -0700
>From: Paul Duke <[email protected]>
>> > -mey plural of persons is allowed but implies "scattered". Perhaps
>> {petaQmey}
>> > rather than {petaQpu'} used of people adds to the contemptuousness.=
>I disagree. Using -mey when talking about a group of people with petaQ w=
>ould
>imply that they are 'lower than the belly of a snake crawling across the=
>desert' kind of thing. You are using it SPECIFICALLY to demoralize them.=
Just to repeat the point, TKD does *NOT* provide that using -mey where -pu'
belongs is insulting. It implies merely scattered-aboutness. The insult
of using the non-sentient affixes is with *possessives* (and even there
it's not clear if the insult is by implication that the person is
stupid; it may be a completely unrelated meaning).
>Besides, how do we know that a petaQ IS a language speaking thing? There=
> has
>never been anything to suggest that. I think it would be comparable to b=
>eing
>called a jackass, or some other type of 'stupid' Ha'DIbah.
This is a good point, and why the question was asked in the first place.
There is no canon answer; in *my* opinion, the unmarked-for-scattering
plural of "petaQ" sounds good as "petaQpu'" *even* if you're right about
the "original" meaning of "petaQ." In that case, using "petaQ" as an
epithet is a metaphor for saying "You are in some way like the real thing
which is a petaQ." But the person(s) involved really *are* still people,
and -pu' thus works.
~mark
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