tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Feb 08 10:45:21 2002

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Re: bopar'a'?

Thank you all for your comments. The transitive use of Qap had eluded me. 
Just out of curiosity, how are the "work, function" glosses of Qap treated? 
Is it correct to say QaptaH QuQ, The engine is working/functioning?

may' Qaplu'DI', not nab pablu'chu', 'ach not may' Qaplu', nabbe'lu'chugh je.

Now, the question of my choice of type 9 verb suffixes, well, since there's 
no marked realis/irrealis distinction in Klingon, the best I could do was 
harness the -DI'/-chugh contrast. And the only reason for my 
anti-recasting caveat was because of the potential for thread explosion, 
viz. today-is-a-good-day-to-die syndrome. I'm sure you understand.

At any rate, most people said they understood the sentence, and a few even 
thot it quite pithy. I don't know much of the origins of this quote -- only 
that it was some American military official (and so obviously it would have 
been in English). I didn't even remember the exact English wording; I was 
aided only by the high graspability of the concept and the fact that it is 
more easily expressed in tlhIngan Hol (as virtually all military metaphors 
are). {{;-)

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