tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Mon Aug 15 05:45:32 1994

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Re: porgh 'ay'mey bIH 'e' boQub'a'?



>From: Susan Farmer <[email protected]>
>Date: Fri, 12 Aug 1994 09:23:23 -0400


>>From: [email protected] (Erich Schneider)
>>
><much tlhIngan deleted>

>>And now I drop into English ... which meaning of "spine" do you think
>>Okrand intended? The thing whose breakage could cause my paralysis, or
>>the things on a porcupine?

>Personally, I always assumed it was both.  After all, he doesn't say; and
>many languages (at I don't think It's just English) have same-spelled
>homonyms.  (I'm sure there's a Technical Term (tm) for that.

Hmm.  Well, yes, many languages have homographs (your term), but I think
it's definitely a bad move to assume that because something is a
homophone/homograph in English that it probably is in anything else also.
Sure, we have "jIH" for "I" and "monitor", and "nargh" for "escape" and
"appear" (possily related meanings), but you can't say that since "spine"
means two things in English it must in Klingon as well.  I suppose I have
no basis for legislating, but to me it seems that pIp should be the thing
that runs down your back with the nerves inside it.  Okrand probably would
have said "thorn" or "spike" as part of the definition (possibly along with
"spine") had he meant the other way.  'Sides, "jejwI'" is an easy way to
handle the other meaning in a pinch.

>Susan

>>
>>-QumpIn 'avrIn

~mark



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