tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 15 02:51:02 1998
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Re: How do I say...
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: How do I say...
- Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1998 05:51:22 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
- Priority: NORMAL
Of course, this is one of those times when the optional word
order can help.
be' legh torgh naghtaHvIS torgh.
In this case, I think it does help to repeat {torgh}, since
otherwise you get into problems considering whether or not torgh
is dreaming or the woman or if there is a third person doing the
seeing. In Klingon, it is fine to repeat, especially when it
helps the clarity this much.
charghwI'
On Mon, 14 Sep 1998 14:17:46 -0700 (PDT) Marc Ruehlaender
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > : najtaHvIS torgh, be' legh.
> > :
> > "While Torg is dreaming, he sees a woman."
> >
> > Absolutely. But I notice you needed to add a comma after {torgh} to
> > distinguish this from:
> >
> > najtaHvIS, torgh be' legh.
> > While s/he is dreaming, s/he sees Torg's woman.
> >
> bIlugh jay' :)
> of course you have the same problem, kind of, with full stops:
>
> naj torgh. be' legh. vs naj. torgh be' legh.
>
> hmmm...
>
> > Punctuation is a wonderfully simple invention, allowing great subtlety in
> > the written language. (In speech of course you'd use pauses of different
> > lengths or intonation to distinguish the various meanings.) We shouldn't
> > hesitate to take advantage of it to add precision - dare I say "accuracy" -
> > and power to our writing.
> >
> I, of course, let myself be guided by German punctuation rules...
>
> Marc Ruehlaender
> aka HomDoq
> [email protected]
>
charghwI' 'utlh