tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Wed Feb 09 15:07:05 1994
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vay'mey vItlhob
{matlhutlh 'ej maSop wIneH}
{matlhutlh 'ej maSop DIneH}
I bring this up as another grammatical weirdness which I have so much fun
racking my brain over. Which of these sentences is correct, or shall I say,
less ambiguous?
The immediate common-sense answer would seem to be that the first is correct
because the object of {-neH} is an implicit {'e'} which should always be
singular. But, in reality, it is arguable that the entire preceding sentenceS
ARE the objectS. Both {matlhutlh} and {maSop}.
Using {DIneH} would clear up an ambiguity here. The first really means "We
drink and we want to eat," whereas the second means "We want to eat and
drink."
Also, I have a pet peeve about the way people have been using {Hech}. Look it
up, it means "intend, mean to." But all too often I've seen it used as "mean"
as in "equal in semantic value."
Example: {"surgery" Hech "Haq"}. But this is incorrect. There's no way around
it. Sure, sure, it's convenient to Anglicize it since we don't have any other
way to say "X means Y" but what you're really saying when you use {Hech} is
"X intends to/means to Y."
Also, I found {Haq} in the main body of TKD to mean "surgery (n)," and in the
addendum, we have {HaqwI'} for "surgeon." Does this mean we could get away
with using {Haq} for "perform surgery?"
Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos {{:-()