tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Apr 07 07:35:19 2008
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
RE: Klingon WOTD: neb (noun)
> > This is the Klingon Word Of The Day for Saturday, April 5, 2008.
> >
> > Category: Animals
> >
> > Klingon word: neb
> > Part of Speech: noun
> > Definition: beak, bill
> >
> > Additional Notes:
> > HolQeD 10:4, p. 4: {matlh juppu' mu'mey}.
Never used in canon:
Related nouns:
The warhead of the torpedo is called its {jorneb} (which seems
to contain the verb {jor} ["explode"] but is otherwise not
analyzable)." [KGT 56; N.B. published before HQ 10:4 IIRC]
I find the idea of a torpedo or missile as a bird of prey diving
at its target beak-first to be a rather apposite metaphor.
(Qes, 6/27/07)]
Related verbs:
{wom} "peck"
Jonathan Webley wrote:
>Presumably, since a body part of a bird, then the plural is {nebDu'}?
Correct. Okrand on {-Du'}:
This suffix is used when referring to body parts of those beings
capable of using language as well as of any other animal ... The
suffix {-mey} cannot be used with body parts." (TKD 23)
We have an example WRT animals: the plural of {lem} "hoof" is {lemDu'}
"hooves", even when a food item: {tIqnagh lemDu'} "*tknag* hooves" which
are always referred to in the plural according to KCD. (FYI "The *tknag*
is a dangerous carnivore native to Taganika. The skin is tough and
leathery, and the *tknag* is a formidable prey." A large food animal, it
is hunted with a {naQjej)} in the {chontay} [ritual hunt].)
There is, however, a small wrinkle WRT body parts that have "lost their
association with the creatures that originally had them". Okrand comments
in st.klingon 3/23/98:
Thus {DIrmey} "skins" and {veDDIrmey} "pelts" are not (or, perhaps
better, are no longer) body parts, but rather are materials from
which things (clothing or blankets, for example) may be made.
They've lost their association with the creatures that originally
had them. (This is kind of like the distinction in English between
"beef", which is eaten, and "cattle", which isn't.) If there still
is that association, that is, if the creatures still have their skin,
or if it's a creature that has multiple skins (maybe layers, maybe
different kinds of skin on different parts of the body), or if the
skin just came off either by natural causes (as with Alan Anderson's
snakes) or by the creatures being, well, skinned, then the body-part
plural suffix {-Du'} may be used: {DIrDu'}. But {DIr} alone, without
a suffix, is heard most often.
--
Voragh
Ca'Non Master of the Klingons