tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Aug 31 00:12:07 1994
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Re: sayings and joke
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: sayings and joke
- Date: Wed, 31 Aug 94 12:07:57 EDT
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "Richard Kennaway" at Aug 31, 94 2:21 pm
According to Richard Kennaway:
>
> I've been trying to translate some Klingon back into English, but the
> results are often cryptic. Advice about these two examples?
>
> charghwI' writes:
> >DeghHomvam 'oH wIghHomwIj'e' 'ach jIHemmeH vItuQ.
>
> "My small genius is this small emblem (or: helm), but I wear it in order to
> be proud"?
My attempt was to come as close as possible to "This is my
small badge of genius, but I wear it proudly." Except for
replacing "emblem" with "badge", you pretty much got what I
wrote. While I'm not delighted with it, I could not quickly
come up with something better, though I'm open to suggestions.
> charghwI' writes:
> >yIt cha' chechwI'. Hechaj DopDaq roS'egh targh.
> >targhvam Da chechwI' wa'Dich neH ghaH jatlh ghaH.
> >bInIDchugh vaj Duchopbej Har chechwI' cha'Dich jatlh ghaH.
>
> "Two drunk people were walking. With them was a targ, licking itself.
> The first drunk person said he/she wanted to act like this targ.
> The second drunk person said he/she believed "it will bite you if you try."
>
>
> Hmmm...quiet chuckle...yes, that has the authentic obscurity of the jokes
> on PK. But shouldn't the last line say instead something like:
>
> bInIDchugh vaj Duchopbej vIHar jatlh chechwI' cha'Dich.
> The second drunk person said "I believe it will bite you if you try."
I agree completely. I wrote this a while back; possibly before
I came to understand that we agree that quotations are direct.
All cannon can be interpreted either way, since there is no
shift in person with the particular examples in canon. The
direct quote, "I told you, 'target engines only,'" and the
indirect quote, "I told you to target engines only," do not
show the difference in person that you see in the direct quote
"The second drunk said, "I believe..." and the indirect quote,
"The second drunk said that he believed..."
> It seems strange to use direct speech (implied by the "you" pronoun
> prefixes) for drunk no.2's belief, and indirect speech for what he actually
> said.
Good point. At any rate, since I wrote that, I have come to
accept that Klingon uses only direct quotation. This should
save me from similar errors in the future.
> -- Richard Kennaway
charghwI'