tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Oct 09 19:26:27 1996

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Boiling blood (was: Re: TLHINGAN-HOL digest 702)

jar wa'maH jaj wa' ghItlh *Mike Rowe*:

>>>>>
On 10/1/96 ghunchu'wI' responds to my post 
with the following:

>We do have canon that says Klingons' 
blood *screams*; that is an idiom that
>we can use with confidence.

All I want is correction on my grammer. 
 NOT whether the statement has a basis in 
canon.  Things become cannon when they 
become used.  

All I am doing is saying something to a 
lady friend.  is my statement correct?

      tagh pub 'IwwIj choHotDI'

      When you touch me my blood begins to 
boil.
<<<<<

I haven't seen this discussion picked up in detail, so here goes. 
There are issues of principle, grammar, and idiom here. 

Principle first. On this list it is NOT the case that, as you 
assert, "Things become canon* when they become used". The 
_American Heritage Dictionary_ gives two relevant definitions of 
"canon": 
    3b. A basis for judgment; a standard or criterion.
    5.  The works of a writer that have been accepted as authentic.
* one "n", but your "cannon" was probably a typo 

"Canon", as used on the tlhIngan-Hol list, combines these two 
senses: it refers primarily to Klingon-language material by Marc 
Okrand, which we take as authentic Klingon and use as our standard 
for correct Klingon. Other Klingon material from Paramount is also 
canonical in Star Trek terms, but since it's often incompatible 
with Okrandian material we don't consider it authoritative for 
tlhIngan Hol. If anything could become canon just by being used, 
anybody could make up a word or a rule and start using it, and 
then we'd have a Tower of Babel, not a language. We know this from 
painful history here as well as linguistic study, and we don't let 
it happen. 

So, within the rules we have set for ourselves, the only way we 
can answer your question 
    "Is my statement [grammatically] correct?" 
is to refer to Marc Okrand's descriptions and examples of Klingon. 
We do this either by explicit reference to his text or by 
using or referring to rules and facts that the experienced 
Klingonists are familiar with and don't have to look up (but could 
if they had to). In other words, it ain't correct unless it's 
based in canon. 

That's the principle. Now to the grammar.

We have a way to say that something begins to happen: the Type 3 
verb suffix <-choH> (TKD p.37). That lets us express your thought 
as 
    pubchoH 'IwwIj choHotDI'
On the other hand, there is no basis in canon for combining two 
verbs in series the way you tried to combine <tagh> and <pub>. You 
COULD probably use the "sentence as object" construction (65-66) 
and say 
    pub 'e' tagh 'IwwIj choHotDI'
but <-choH> provides a much cleaner way and is unquestionably 
correct.

The question of idiom has been covered in the previous discussion, 
but I'll expand on it here. (SoQ vIjatlhtaH 'e' vIparHa' net Sov.) 
Unless you're referring to LITERALLY boiling blood (which is 
probably fatal to Klingons as well as humans), it's necessary to 
ask whether this non-literal expression will convey the meaning 
you want in Klingon. We're handicapped by the paucity of canonical 
text and the lack of access to native speakers, but we do have at 
least two relevant texts. One, which charghwI' refers to, is the 
classic toast (with traditionally frozen distorted syntax) 
    'IwlIj jachjaj!
    May your blood scream!
The other, as Thaddaeus Vick reminded us, is
    bIrchoH SuvwI' 'Iw
    The blood of the warrior grows cold
used to discourage unwanted amorous advances. (There's <-choH>!) 
Neither uses "boil", but I think the second one justifies your 
usage.

So go for it! Tell your lady friend
    pubchoH 'IwwIj choHotDI'
And <Qapla'!>

     marqem, tlhIngan veQbeq la'Hom -- Heghbej ghIHmoHwI'pu'! 
Subcmdr. Markemm, Klingon Sanitation Corps -- Death to Litterbugs!
**              Mark A. Mandel : [email protected]             **
    Dragon Systems, Inc. : speech recognition : +1 617 965-5200 
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02160, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/
=> KLINGON PAGE! http://www.dragonsys.com/klingon/klingon2.html <=

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