tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 26 08:17:11 2004

Back to archive top level

To this year's listing

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]

Re: 'uD vs. 'uD'a' ?

Steven Boozer ([email protected]) [KLI Member] 

ghuchu'wI':
> >(My guess is that Okrand intended {'uD} to refer to something which emits
> >light, but now it's officially translated the same as {'uD'a'} "laser".)

QeS lagh:
>That's an interesting point. {'uD Haqtaj} could still have {'uD} referring
>to a light-emitting source in general rather than a laser in particular, to
>distinguish from a {baS Haqtaj}. That would explain why we have the verb
>derivations {wovmoHwI'} and {wovmoHbogh janHom} instead of one simple noun
>root for "light source".

Why would you expect one simple noun root?  That's anglo-centric thinking.

lay'tel SIvten:
 >>except that {'uD Haqtaj} is specifically glossed as "laser scalpel" in the
 >>new word list, which refers back to HolQeD v1n3(p9), which i don't have.

>True, but there's no other light source that can conceivably cut anything,
>so "laser scalpel" is the only sensible interpretation, even if {'uD} did
>just refer to any light source here. I'm not saying {'uD} doesn't mean
>"laser". I think, though, that we shouldn't necessarily rule out {'uD} as
>possibly being just a light source, in addition to the meaning it carries in
>{'uD Haqtaj}.

I think we should take Okrand at his word.  If he meant "light", he would 
have said so.  Since both {'uD Haqtaj} "laser scalpel" and {'uD'a'} "laser" 
both appear in the same list Okrand provided for the "veS QonoS" newsletter 
(reprinted in "HolQeD" 1.3), we should accept them as is and not try to 
re-analyze what he "really meant".

>For my money, I've always thought that an {'uD} would be more like a laser
>pointer, and {'uD'a'} like the laser Goldfinger uses on James Bond.

Agreed.  As {'uD'a'} was not used in any context, I've always considered it 
to be a much larger, more powerful version of the {'uD} -- say, the laser 
weapons on an obsolete spaceship.  ("Modern" starships, of course, have 
phasers and disruptors.)

>BTW, I asked this question a while back, but got no response one way or the
>other: Do the members of the list see a significant difference between
>{wovmoHwI'} "light, lantern" and {Sech} "torch"?

{wovmoHwI'} is a mechanical device.  Some are installed on Birds-of-Prey:

   telDaq wovmoHwI'mey
   Wing Lights (KBoP)

>Would {Sech} refer to a stick-with-a-fire-at-the-end kind of torch?

For an American (like Okrand), absolutely; only a Brit would immediately 
think of a mechanical lantern (i.e. a "flashlight" in American).  We're 
told that the the Torch of G'boj {ghI'boj Sech} "is one of the most revered 
historical objects in the Empire, though exactly why is seldom revealed to 
outsiders" (KGT 130).  The phrase also occurs in a common (and probably 
old) simile:

   wov; ghI'boj Sech rur
   bright as the Torch of G'boj KGT

We don't know what it looks like, but I really can't imagine the famous 
Torch of G'boj being some kind of flashlight!



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

Back to archive top level