tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Aug 07 22:39:49 1994

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KLBC: Re: Run Like Hell

***KLBC***

> I have been straining my brain on the title for a while.  In it 
> you gave me, {ghu''or DaDa ...}  And said that the rest was not as
> easy as adding {yIqet}.  Well, I have been struggling on this one 
> for a long time, and for the life of me, I cannot figure it out.

Well, what would the sentence mean if you stuck {yIqet} in there?
It'd be: "(you) run you resemble Hell."  Garbage.  Read charghwI''s 
excellent recent post on multiple verbs.  Think about what you want to 
say, and then think about the tlhIngan Hol tools you have to express 
that concept.  Here's one possibility: {ghu''or DaDa qettaHghachDaj}.  
This is a *very* literal translation of the title.  I suggest you try 
to work out the meaning of the English title first, and then work from 
there.

> "They send one of yours to the hospital, you send two of theirs
> to the morgue.  That is the Chicago way."
>
> QI'tu' wa' nIngeH
> ghe''or cha' DangeH
> net tlhIngan chut

I hardly think of a hospital as "paradise"!  I realize there's no word 
for hospital, but we do have {Qel} "doctor."

Let's look at this one line at a time.

> QI'tu' wa' nIngeH

To avoid lots of possible confusion, you need a {-Daq} on {QI'tu'}.  
Otherwise, it could be "Paradise #1."   Also, you're going for an 
indefinite object on the verb {ngeH}, they send *someone*.  The prefix 
{nI-} means they-you.  The answer is in TKD 5.2, numbers: {lungeH} 
(Funny how it looks like the indefinite subject suffix!).  So, now 
your sentence would be (with "doctor" instead of "paradise"):

QelDaq wa' lungeH

> ghe''or cha' DangeH

Again, you need {-Daq} on the target location: TKD 3.3.5.  Otherwise, 
good: {ghe''orDaq cha' DangeH}.

> net tlhIngan chut

Word salad.  First of all, this sentence has no verb.  {tlhIngan chut} 
means "Klingon law" (the law of the Klingon), and {net} is a pronoun 
intended to refer to the previous sentence, under special 
circumstances (TKD 6.2.5).  Okay, maybe you want to refer to the 
previous sentence, but you should use {'e'} here, and then pick a 
verb.  Perhaps: {'e' tlhIngan chut 'oH} (for "to be," TKD 6.3).

I hope this has been helpful.  I try not to give too much away, so 
that you can still spend some instructive time with this yourself, but 
also to give enough information to get you started, thinking about 
these things, and to know where to look for details in TKD.

--Holtej, the Beginner's Grammarian

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