tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Jul 06 13:35:14 2004

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RE: mu'qaDmey tIQ (was:Re: imperative + -jaj)

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

jI'qel ghojwI' wrote:
>Agh.  I missed the fact that <mebpa'mey> now means "hotel".  Is this
>weird to anyone else?  I see <mebpa'mey> and I read "guest rooms".  It's
>got a plural suffix on it, yet it's a singular noun?  That bugs me.

It bugs a lot of us.

>Does this actually appear in the text of KGT, or is it just in the word
>index?

IIRC, it only appears in the glossary and is not used or discussed anywhere 
in the text of KGT.

Some have speculated that this is a word Okrand created for but didn't use 
in CK (i.e. the scene where the Terran checks into the hotel on Kronos) 
while other think it's a word he may have realized he needed after the fact 
and just included in KGT.

ghunchu'wI' commented when this came up some time ago that:

   The translation "hotel" is a convenient noun that exists in English,
   but apparently Klingon has no unique word for a collection of guest
   rooms. It is rather like talking about a professor's "rooms": you
   mean his apartment, but you refer to the collection of rooms instead
   of using a singular noun. However, "rooms" isn't a singular noun,
   "The professor's rooms are cluttered," not "The professor's rooms is
   cluttered." ... I guess that {mebpa'mey} works the same way. You could
   talk about a single {mebpa'} or plural {mebpa'mey}, but there's no
   unique noun to describe the collection of these rooms, a hotel.

Until Okrand uses or explains is, this is a good analysis.  I see nothing 
wrong in referring to a single {mebpa'}:

   ghuy'cha'!  mebpa'Daq QumwI'wIj vIlonpu' jay'!
   Dammit!  I've left my communicator back in the &^%$ hotel room!



-- 
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons

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