tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 02 06:58:44 1997
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RE: Buy me a drink
- From: "HurghwI'" <[email protected]>
- Subject: RE: Buy me a drink
- Date: Thu, 02 Jan 1997 08:58:24 -0600
At 03:17 PM 1/1/97 -0800, jatlh SuStel:
>>You can't "buy" (read "pay for") the fact that I
>> drink. You wouldn't even if you could. You pay for the drink itself. If you
>> want to say "Pay _in order_ that I drink," you could use the phrase I
>> mentioned earlier. It appears to me that you are reading something into the
>> combination of <'e'> and <DIl> that is simply not there. The translation
>> speaks for itself; it makes no sense. "Pay for that I drink."
>
>NO!!! You cannot say that if the translation makes no sense, the Klingon is
>not right. There are sometimes things which simply *cannot* be translated
>smoothly! For example, trI'Qal's joke at qep'a' wejDIch: {<nock* *knock*.>
><SaH 'Iv?>}, or my own recent one: {HuDDu' jojDaq ngech tu'lu'.}
It appears that these translate fine. "Who is present," and "In mountain's
area between someone or something finds a valley."
>What I think *you're* reading into this is that you seem to think that the
>payment will be given to the person who performs the action being paid for.
>This is untrue. I could say {jItlhutlh jabwI'vaD 'e' yIDIl} "Pay the waiter
>for me to drink."
Shouldn't the <jabwI'vaD> come at the beginning?
>Anyway, there's still nothing wrong with {jItlhutlhmeH HIq yIDIl}. Use it if
>you like. Until Okrand tells me that {DIl} is used only to pay for *things*
>(which is not impossible, but is not evidenced anywhere), I'll also believe
>that there is no reason it can't be part of an {'e'} sentence.
Either way, I realized that you're right <bIlugh 'e' vItlhoj>, because you
can say <bIjatlh 'e' yImev>, and that obviously refers to the action instead
of the idea. I still don't like it, though; if it wasn't canon I would
probably argue against that, too! {{;-)} Do you at least see where my unease
comes from?
-HurghwI'