tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Mar 27 16:57:11 1994
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Re: KLBC: juHqo' (Hoghvam)
Hu'tegh! nuq ja' [email protected] jay'?
=>Sorry, Guido, you are wrong. The KD clearly states on page 19 that compound
=>nouns are made up of nouns, and ONLY nouns. Yes, I understood what you
=meant,
=>but this is one of those times when we say "Maltz has't given us the word
=>yet", and leave it at that. So you put "summer" in there in quotes... big
=>deal. We cope. {{:)
=Ok, so maybe it should have been {bov tuj}. If you can figure out what it
=means, what's the big deal. Actually, that's one of NickNicholas's creations.
=He has a lot of good ideas, imesho. I only wish Krankor (and loyal
=Krankorians, like charghwI') didn't get so annoyed by him.
Well,
(1) So someone *does* read my Sonnets! (But then, I already knew Guido does.
You still owe me some commentary on them Sonnets, G#1!)
(2) I did say bov tuj (and bov bIr); I certainly agree with charghwI' (and
trI'Qal, I suppose) that we don't have the licence to make such coinings;
(3) On the other hand, how *else* would you say "summer"?
(4) I'm not unsubscribed quite yet; no need to talk of me as if I'm not
listening! :-)
(5) Watch it, ghuy'Do, they'll think we're in cahoots ;) How do I get you to
send me your protection money again? ;)
(5a) I like smileys. Cope.
(6) I'm obviously not the one to analyse this latest reported incident of
a Nick vs. the Krankorians flare-up; I certainly didn't intend another
flare-up, but I did think that there were some fairly crucial errors there
which Krankor probably didn't realise were errors, and which haven't been
discussed here before. Now that Mark has entered the discussion and we've
kicked the ball around, I would like to think we can discuss these grammatical
issues further --- which is all I intended in the first place. (Yes, I
wasn't particularly laudatory in pointing my disagreements out, but those
of you who've seen me correcting before know that I am terse as a rule,
anyway. I *am* meant to be doing my long-suffering thesis...)
Why these "flare-ups" keep happening, I'm not sure I am qualified to say. I
certainly didn't get out of bed thinking "today is Get Krankor day", and I
don't recall seething against him for at least the past month. I do
admit that I have a rather low tolerance of English in Klingon clothing,
and uncritical calques of English expressions --- as would be evident from
my commentary on Glen's piece. I don't see such usage in Mark's or charghwI''s
text (they really should write more); I did see it in the "lut", and I
was disappointed. But this should not be a controversy; we should be able to
discuss these matters; that's what the list is for. I'm sure Krankor is as
willing as the rest of us to learn from such discussion.
I also suspect this situation owes a lot to the continuing confusion over
the grammarians' role. My understanding is that expert Klingonists' text
*must* be fair game to other expert Klingonists (as many of them as sensible;
in my book, that's more than one --- there are ins-and-outs in experts' text
which no one person can capture), and that the grammarians' job is
to correct *beginners*, and to *arbitrate* amongst the expert. In this, I'm
obviously at odds with others. I'm surprised to hear that Elias did not
publish a grammarian policy while I was off-line. I think it would be a good
idea.
As for grammatical commentary being four times the length of the original
article (as one person complained to me) --- that is the best way to learn
Klingon. It's certainly how I learnt Klingon: by watching Krankor tear
others' prose to bits. How do you learn if you don't make mistakes --- or
see those of others corrected?
I'll admit I lose patience with calques, but I did not intend to sound
snide, and I apologise if I did. And if the "Krankorians" (or even the list
;) --- that was a joke, folks) think list peace is best served by me not
correcting Krankor in public (and I refuse to do it in private, for then
it'll have no paedagogical value, and *that*'s the only reason it should
be done), then all I can say is, Mark, be vigilant! ;)
Enough of this. Now can we get on with the work of establishing a Klingon
stylistics?
--
Nick.