tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 27 22:38:29 1994
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Re: Translation help!
- From: Will Martin <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Translation help!
- Date: Fri, 28 Jan 94 11:37:12 EST
On Jan 28, 10:12am, "Matt Gomes" wrote:
...
> I just looked at this little
> snippet and am thoroughly confused. Can someone help?
>
> >batlh choja', Matthew Whiteacre quv:
>
[Mat's guess]:
> You tell me the honor, be honored Matthew Whiteacre...
...
> -mat
You are pretty close. Basically, this is an overly polite, redundantly
saccarine statement. Consider that {quv} is used adjectivally and {batlh} is
used adverbally. I then translate this as "Your honor, the honorable Matthew
Whiteacre, tell me:" or "Honorable Matthew Whiteacre, you honorably tell me:"
While it is nice to be nice, this particular convention puts my teeth on
edge. It becomes white noise I ignore; the stuff of pretentious diplomats.
Still, YOU can rest easily that it is not YOUR fault that you have difficulty
understanding it. It does not, in a typically Klingon fashion, get to the
point of the conversation. In native Klingon, it REALLY means: "Note the name
of the person who said the following, and then ignore the rest of this
sentence."
charghwI'