tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 25 15:28:23 1996

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upload/download/all around the town load...

On Tue, 20 Aug 1996 02:08:52 -0700 "A.Appleyard" 
<[email protected]> wrote:

> As someone said, TKD's "{lI'} = transmit data to a place"; {lab} = transmit
> data from a place" is very unclear,... Until canon
> examples tell me otherwise, I will be tempted to use {lI'} = "be useful" and
> {lab} = "transmit". Do canon examples show any evidence that Marc Okrand
> intended {lI'} = "upload" and {lab} = "download" as in our FTP and WWW?

In the third movie, ST3, Search for Spock, we have the only 
canon use of these terms that I know about. In the conversation 
between Valkris and Kruge:

Valkris: HablI' Su' labbeH (Ready to transmit.)

[Valkris's lines were actually spoken in English 
literally what the subtitles say she is saying, then 
Okrand wrote the Klingon lines to fit the lip movements 
and the scene was redubbed later. Syllable mapping: HablI' - 
Ready, Su' - to, labbeH - transmit. The actual meaning of these 
lines is very strange, probably forced to fit the lip movements. 
It probably means something like, "Transmitter: Get ready. It is 
ready to transmit." Having that exclammatory {Su'} makes no 
sense in the middle of a sentence, and {HablI'} makes no sense 
as an object of {lab}. Meanwhile, she is the one preparing to 
upload/send, not download/receive, so lab evidently means 
"upload/send".

Kruge: So'wI' yIchu'Ha' (Disengage cloaking device.)

[This is our first example of a line written in Klingon by Marc 
Okrand and spoken under his direction. The grammar is straight 
forward and the enunciation clear.]

Kruge: De' yIlI' (Transmit data.)

[Since this is a command to a member of his crew and Kruge is 
about to receive the data, {lI'} apparently means to 
download/receive. Others have suggested that he was addressing 
Valkris and not a member of his own crew, but I doubt it. Why 
would Valkris bother to tell Kruge that she is ready to send if 
some action is not needed to initiate the reception of that 
data? And why does Kruge's inflection change so radically 
from the tone he used when speaking to Valkris? And why would 
the definitions of {lab/lI'} so strongly suggest that the 
difference (if difficult to figure out) relate to the giving or 
receiving of the data.

As I can figure, Okrand's rather unconventional description 
comes from what was at that time a lack of familiarity with 
computers in general, especially in terms of data transmission. 
Transmitting data TO a place for him apparently meant "to the 
place of the person receiving the data". I am at a place and I'm 
transmitting data to my place, hence transmitting to a place, 
and receiving/downloading.

Meanwhile, transmitting from a place again refers to the place 
of the person doing the transmitting, so when I upload/send, I 
am transmitting data from a place; my place. See?

Just because the rest of the world tends to think about the 
place one transmits to or from to be the "other" place we are 
connecting to does not mean that this is the only model for 
transmission. Okrand saw it the other way.

The sender used {lab} and the receiver used {lI'}.

Is that canon enough?

charghwI'

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