Word: to have time, to make it

Category:

Description/Reason:

A general word for having time to do something. Could be used for example like: {DuSaqDaq jI(–)be'} I didn't make it to school.


Comment below with feedback and suggestions.

Responses

  1. More examples:
    {bIvut 'e' Da(-)'a'?} Do you have time to make food?
    {juHDaq jISop 'e' vI(-)} I had time to eat at home.
    {lopno'Daq jI(-)} I made it to the party.
    {qaStaHvIS qepHom jI(-)} I do not have time to participate in the meeting / I can't make it to meeting.

    This is very close to the Swedish word "hinna" or the Finnish word "ehtiä".

  2. This seems like a good suggestion as no existing Klingon word seems to cover this meaning.

    A natural suggestion would be {poH ghaj} "have time", but that might be an anglicism. We know that the Klingon {ghaj} has a much more narrower meaning than the English "have" (examples: http://klingon.wiki/En/Have). To avoid anglifying the language, I think that we should be very careful to use that word to refer to anything else than concrete/physical possessions and abstracts concepts that have appeared in canon (like {quv}). Another problem is that the word has wrong connotations. The word suggested here means both "have time" and "use that time". {poH ghaj} lacks the latter meaning, and doesn't imply that the time was actually used to do the thing, just that there was time.

    Another possibility could be {poH Hutlhbe'}, but I think it suffers from the same problems as {poH ghaj}.

    As these alternatives are insufficient, I support this word suggestion.

    1. Yeah I wouldn't use {ghaj} or {Hutlh} here either for the exact same reason.
      But instead I suggest {yap poH} "time is sufficient" to express one of the senses above:

      {bIvutmeH yap'a' poH?}
      "Will time be enough/sufficient for you to make food?"

      {juHDaq jISopmeH yap poH}
      "Time was sufficient for me to eat at home."

      For the others, I would break down "making it" into several distinct senses.

      {lopno' vIpawta' 'e' vIchav}
      Lit. "I achieved that I arrived at the party."

      {qepDaq jIjeS net bot}
      Lit. "Something prevents me from participating at the meeting."

      Klingon already has a native idiom {tey} "to scrape", to describe situations that come uncomfortably close to not happening:

      {lopno' vIpawta' 'ach jIteypu'}
      "I just made it to the party." Lit. "I arrived at the party but I scraped."

      1. Some of those might work. I don't like {net bot} as in other contexts {net} implies that the action is more general, like {net Sov} "it is generally known". {jIjeS net bot} feels like there is a general restriction rather than a specific cause.

        After checking my notes, I'm also a bit unsure about using {poH} at all. It is defined as "period of time". I checked my canon corpus and it seems that it isn't ever used for uncountable time, just specific periods like {puq poH} "generation" and {poH tuj} "hot season". So {yap poH} would mean "the period of time is sufficient", which *might* be a correct translation in some contexts (eg. if we are talking about duty shifts), but doesn't work when we are talking about time as a resource, not about a specific period of time.

        Thank you for the {tey} idiom. That is indeed useful.

        1. About {poH} – it doesn't refer to time as a phenomenon, or the whole historical timeline. You could use it to ask whether a particular timeframe is sufficient to complete a task:

          {qumwI' nav QIn vIjangmeH wa'leS yap poH}
          "Tomorrow a period of time will be sufficient for me to answer the governor's letter."
          "I will have time to answer the governor's letter tomorrow."

          The other option is to use {'eb} 'opportunity', which can also be used with {jon} "capture" to connote a sense of achievement:

          {qumwI' lopno'meyDaq jISaHmeH 'ebmey law' vIjonlaHta'}
          "I was able to capture many opportunities to be present at the governor's parties."
          "I was able to make it to many of the governor's parties."

          Yet another option is to combine {'eb} and {poH} – {'eb poH} "a time period of opportunity":

          {veng naQ wISuchmeH 'eb poH nupeS'a' San?}
          "Will fate furnish us with a time period of opportunity so that we can visit the entire city?"
          "Will we get a chance to visit the entire city?"