tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Feb 17 06:07:37 1994

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Re: Klingon Insults

>>The "be" is already baked into Hab, which means "to be smooth".
>>Thus, HabmoH is "cause to be smooth, make smooth, smoothify".
>>                --Krankor
> 
>"Smoothify"? :-)  How about smoothen - to make or become smooth.  Ok,
>I see your point about "be" being part of the definition.  But still,
>I would like to point out the example on p. 171: "This helmet suits
>you" is given as {Du'IHchoHmoH mIv vam}.  The definition of 'IH is
>"be beautiful, handsom", so "be" is also baked into this definition.
>However,  -choH is still used.  The point I'm making is that if you
>want to use an adjectival verb as an ordinary verb, then you can't assume 
>that the "be" in the adjectival definition makes -choH redundant.
>Anyways, if you follow the example, saying {lamDaq QuchlIj 
>DaHabchoHmoHta'} is better than saying {lamDaq Quchlij DaHabmoHta'}.
> 
>Amy

If you grew up in my home, 'smoothify' would make perfect sense. {{:-)

I don't believe I ever claimed the -choH was redundant.  I claimed
it didn't have useful semantic meaning.  In other words, adding it
didn't do nothing, it changed the meaning for the worse.  The -choH
has nothing whatsoever to do with "be"-ingness.  It indicates a
change in state.  The difference, then, between the two versions of
the curse, is that, without -choH, it's a general statement about
how the person behaves.  With -choH, it indicates a change in state,
or, in other words, indicates that the person has *just begun* to
act this way, which is a weaker sentiment, and which is why I prefer
it less.  Let's translate them explicitly, to be clear:

lamDaq QuchlIj DaHabmoHta'
                  "You've smoothified your forehead in thedirt"

lamDaq QuchlIj DaHabchoHmoHta'
                  "You've just smoothified your forehead in the dirt."
                                or
                  "You've started to smoothify your forehead in the dirt."


If you translate the helmet sentence ultra-literally, you get:

Du'IHchoHmoH mIvvam     "This helmet makes you start to look ugly."


Hope that clarifies.

                --Krankor

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