tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Mar 03 00:38:53 1997

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

RE: KLBC: New Words - magic, magician



jatlh Jim LeMaster:

> I looked back and obviously had still not come up with a
> worthwhile/legal word for "magic".

Hey, I was busy today.  I don't spend ALL my time answering KLBC questions!

> I don't wish to break anymore
> rules,so I will ask:
> 
>   Is it possible to combine HoSchem (energy field) with SIH (bend) as:	
> 
>         SIHHoSchem
>           or
>         HoSchem SIH    as (Energy Bend{ing})

No.

You have once again tried to combine a noun and a verb in the first sentence.  
You may not do this.

The second sentence says "bends energy field."  If we knew whether {SIH} was 
transitive or intransitive, we might say is says, "He bends an energy field," 
which is closer to what we want to say.

The closest you could possibly get to "energy field bending" would be {HoSchem 
SIHtaHghach}, which is a rather ugly phrase.  I suggest you don't use it.  
Besides, it's almost certainly a "hindsight" word; one of those words which 
you'd never get unless someone told you ahead of time what it was supposed to 
mean.

Sometimes we just don't have a way to express something.  "Magic" may be one 
of those things we can't express now.

-- 
SuStel
Beginners' Grammarian
Stardate 97170.0


Back to archive top level