tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Jan 27 22:38:29 1994

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Re: Translation help!



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'



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