tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 16 15:06:39 2003

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Re: Things happen Or: One person's opinion

...Paul ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

On Tue, 16 Sep 2003, Steven Boozer wrote:
> > >    qaS wanI' DISeHlaHbe'bogh.

Reviewing my own proposal, I'm no longer satisfied.  The English:
"Events occur that we cannot control" I think is an accurate rewording of
the sentiment -- but it's actually not what my proposal actually says.
The more accurate English translation is "Events that we cannot control,
occur."  Not what I really wanted.

> Then why not just compress it further:
>
>    rut wanI' DISeHlaHbe' neH.
>    Sometimes we just can't control events.
>
> which is the underlying idea.  {qaS} is redundant: an event isn't an event
> until it happens; until then it's only a possibility {DuH} -- except,
> perhaps, in temporal mechanics! <g>

Hmm.  Interesting metaphysical issue there.  I don't think /DuH/ are
always events.  And I think you can have a /wanI'/ that has not occurred
yet.  Does the idea of "controlling an event" actually convey the idea of
"causing an event to either occur or not to occur"?

What are we really saying with the idiom "Poop Happens"?  We're conveying
the idea that a) bad things happen, and b) sometimes we can't prevent it
from happening, perhaps also c) bad things will happen due to no fault of
our own.

Perhaps /bot/ is more appropriate than "control" here:

    rut wanI' DIbotlaHbe'.
    Sometimes we can't prevent events.

(I dropped the /neH/ as well.  The word "just" in "we just can't prevent"
I think is not being used in the vein of "merely, only", but rather,
"simply, certainly", which /neH/ doesn't accomplish)...

...Paul

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