tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jul 05 10:11:26 1998
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Re: -Curses
On Sun, 5 Jul 1998, Minots wrote:
>From: Steven Boozer <[email protected]>
>
>>toh-pah or toba' (epithet) [This is possibly a misreading of
>> tohzah.] - The Cardassians fire on the Enterprise and Maht-H'a to
>> disable them and thus gain an adventage on the chase. Capt Nu'Daq,
>> aboard the Enterprise, hails Maht-H'a: "Maht-H'a, status?" "Minor
>> damage to starboard nacelle. We will be operational in less than one
>> hour." "WHAT! You incompetent toh-pah! You were supposed to be
>> prepared!" Later, on the planet where the puzzle is finally solved,
>> the Cardassian Gul who tried to deceive both the Klingons and
>> Federation, materializes. Nu'Daq shouts "You dishonorable toh-pah!"
>> (The Chase)
>
>Aha! This must be the origin of the word {toppa'} in KGT! Witness KGT page
>132 (under Similes):
>
>tlhIb; toppa' rur ("incompetent as a 'topah'")
I really should update my list of curses, which I compiled some months before
KGT came out. Thanks for noticing this.
The glossary lists {toppa'} (n.) "type of animal" -- the epithet is clearly a
noun. So... "WHAT! You incompetent topah!" {chay'! toppa' tlhIb SoH!}, or
would that be {SoH, toppa' tlhIb} since the original is more of an
apposition, and not a complete sentence in English? I do like the sound of
the first, though, and it's the same number of words regardless.
Voragh