tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed May 13 09:11:09 1998

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Re: Pet peeves

: ja' Voragh:
: >I wish we knew how Klingons address things.  In other words, how do Klingons
: >command an "it" -- like a computer or a turbolift?  All the imperative forms
: >address a "you" (singular or plural).  Most of us have assumed Klingons use
: >Clipped Klingon for this, though I can't find anything in canon or that
: >Okrand has said in the Expert Forum.  Can anyone else?
: 
: HablI', Su': labbeH.
:   - Valkris, Star Trek III
: 
: When I mentioned to Okrand at qep'a' loSDIch that I thought that this was in
: the form of a "pet command", he said it was a valid interpretation.
: 
: -- ghunchu'wI'

You've mentioned your theory - which I always thought was a good one -
before, but I hadn't realized that Okrand approved it.  I've adopted your
punctuation and annotated my notes.  Thus our knowledge of the language
increases, one bit at a time.

Since Klingons used Clipped Klingon with their machines, they no doubt look
askance on someone (say, an alien?) who used the tlhIngan Hol verb prefixes
-- rather like Humans are amused by people who say "please" and "thank you"
to computers.  As I recall, there was an amusing scene in a TNG episode
where a brand new engineer fresh out of the Academy explained to LaForge her
theory of being polite to computers.

Voragh

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