tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Feb 15 03:17:38 1994
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How do you say....
>From: [email protected]
>Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 06:16:09 EST
>Yes. But "program-insect/bug" is idiomatic. Sorry, the grammar and all is
>fine, but it doesn't sound very Klingon. I guess it depends on how Klingons
>think of bugs and things like that. Do they annoy Klingons, are they a food
>source, do they play some part in Klingon agriculture or economy?? Well, we
>just can't tell. Anyways, what's wrong with {Duy'}? Or maybe {ghunwI' Qagh}?
Just the standard nitpick (more bug idioms...) "bug" as a problem in a
system isn't so named because it's annoying, but for being small and
omnipresent and hard to keep out. The root of the idiom is a dead metaphor
involving a small insect that crawled into the works and kept them from
working right (computer lore notwithstanding, the usage predates the famous
moth found in a computer relay, which was removed in a famous instance of
literal computer debugging. I believe it is recorded in that usage at
least as far back as Thomas Edison).
>I offer this:
>{De'wI' Duy' DatI'ta''a'} or {ghunwI' Qagh DalughmoHta''a'}
>Of course the former, might be used to refer mainly to problems with an
>entire computer, rather than one of its specific programs. vaj mu'tlheghwIj
>cha'DIch vImaSlaw'
Oh yeah. Blame the programmer; only a wimpy Terran afraid of taking
responsibility would imply that the bug was somehow the *program*'s fault!
:-)
>Guido#1, Leader of All Guidos
~mark
P.S. chotIchHa'mo' choquv. jIHem.