tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun May 01 03:03:23 1994
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Re: Response to Proechel criticisms
- From: "William H. Martin" <[email protected]>
- Subject: Re: Response to Proechel criticisms
- Date: Sun, 1 May 94 15:00:40 EDT
- In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>; from "Nick NICHOLAS" at Apr 30, 94 8:56 pm
According to Nick NICHOLAS,
> 1. He rejected my use of _pagh_ to mean "nobody"...
One of the unprinted secrecy proverbs in Power Klingon is:
{lojmIt poSDaq Daq pagh} = "No one eavesdrops at an open door."
You should need no further justification.
> 2. For throw [stones], Glen used Krankor's puvmoH. I countered with bach. Glen
> pointed out that bach must involve the use of a launcher. I counter that puv,
> at least prototypically, involves controlled, self-propelled flight; to extend
> it to projectile flight seems to me an Anglicism. I now think it is baH which
> is most appropriate here.
This is surprising, considering that I remember people
talking about the softball games at HIS summer camp where they
called the pitcher {baHwI'} and referred to that person's act
with the verb {baH].
> 3. Glen translated "look up" as leghchoH. I said it should be bejchoH. He
> says the distinction between look and watch occurs primarily in English.
> It doesn't; and if the distinction wasn't intended to be made in Klingon,
> why are they translated by different words? One sees things before looking
> up; but one starts watching what is up there only when looking up. leghchoH
> corresponds to "open eyes" or "regain sight", not "look up".
"Watch" makes a lot more sense here.
> 4. Glen defends his use of qanlaw' as an adjectival verb, and asks me to
> cite chapter & verse of TKD. He should read the first sentence of p. 50
> a lot more carefully. A comma before "which" typically denotes a nonrestrictive
> relative clause, which here implies that *all* verbs (not just -qu' verbs),
> when used adjectivally, can take no other suffix. This reading of TKD has
> become established practice here --- so much so that loDpu' qanlaw' seems
> to me a barbarism.
The arguement here and #3 sounds like Nick came up with a
better idea than Glen and rather than receive that well, Glen
responded with a defense of a weak position. It sounds like
Glen needs to be right, even when he can tell that he is
probably wrong. This is not a good characteristic for a leader.
> 5. I translated his loDpu' qanlaw' as qup. He counters that "old men" here
> refers only to age, not to social position like "elders" does. "presbu'teros"
> means both elder and older man, and usually means the former. If the
> commentaries say it's the latter, then so be it.
{qup} is clearly better.
> 6. I translated euagge'lion (Good News, Gospel) as De' QaQ; he as lut QaQ.
> He attacks my use of De' (data, information) to mean News, saying it isn't
> canonical. I've lent out my Power Klingon, so can't confirm my impression
> that De' is used there. In any case, "information" is consistent with
> "message" and "news". Glen reads "data, information" to mean "statistics";
> I think the reading rather narrow (surprisingly so, coming from someone
> who translated "call [on telephone]" as pong).
You were probably thinking of {De' lI' Sovlu'DI' chaq
Do'Ha'} = "Knowledge of useful information may be unfortunate."
That's not quite as strong an endorsement for your
interpretation as the {pagh} example, but it does lean in that
direction. I think {lut} is better, if you are willing to
concede that the Gospel is fiction...
> 7. I said that Glen's continuing use of -pu' was pluperfect...
> There is an excellent reason for doing this in narrative. If you don't, then
> 9 out of 10 verbs get a -pu' suffix they don't really need. -pu' is a marked
> phenomenon in Klingon, to an extent the more inflexional past tense in
> English isn't, so it makes sense to drop it where it doesn't contribute.
As an additional point, if you use {-pu'} on the verbs
that are current to the time setting of the story, then what do
you have left to refer to actions that were complete at that
time? {-pu'qu'}? I think not. The {-pu'} suffix is intended to
mark an EXCEPTION to the time setting of the story.
> 8. I translated adultery as tlhoghvaD tlhIv. Glen thinks this insufficient:
> I had to express that adultery was a violation of Mosaic law. Glen in
> his translation *only* mentioned it was a violation of Mosaic law; he
> said nothing about its marital nature. Furthermore, moikheu'omai ("to
> commit adultery") made sense to the Ancient Greeks before they ever heard
> of Mosaic law. tlhoghvaD tlhIv conveys adequately that the act is regarded
> in the given society as a transgression; how Mosaic law regarded it
> specifically is a matter for the footnotes, not for the lexical translation.
How about {tlhoghvaD matlhbe'}? (or would that be
{matlhHa'}? "Insubbordinate" seems to carry connotations of
defiance more than dishonor. I am insubordinate in your face,
though I may be disloyal behind your back. Acts that define
adultery are most commonly performed in secret and are closer
to treachery than insubordination.
> 9. Glen translated "strange man" (= man other than her husband) as loD
> Huj. I translated loD Huj as "weirdo". Glen corrected my spelling. If Glen
> ever participates in the Net, he will find soon enough that spelling flames
> aren't highly regarded here. The meaning of "strange" as "foreign" is, as
> I've already said, archaic and marginal. It is "strange"'s meaning as
> "peculiar" which is productive. If loD Huj means "strange man = other than
> your husband", what does loD Hujqu' mean? A man who *really* isn't your
> husband? No. It means "really strange man". And in *that* phrase, "strange"
> can only mean "peculiar".
I agree with your interpretation. I think this is an
uncommon enough concept (man who is not her husband) that it
has no adjectival verb that can carry the meaning. You probably
need a full blown {loDnalDaj ghaHbe'bogh loD'e'}.
> 11. I said wa' tlhIH to mean "one of you". Glen thinks I don't understand
> noun-noun compounds. I do. That wa' is a determiner, as in wa' mang =
> one soldier. wa' tlhIH is admittedly odd, but at least not ambiguous;
> tlhIH wa' can be interpreted as "You #1", which is not the same thing. I
> will not insist on this, though.
I know some will squawk at this suggestion, but I really
think this would be so much clearer as {wa' tlhIHvo'}.
> 13. Glen thinks lo'taHvIS for "with" is intolerable. lo'taHvIS does have
> explicit Okrandian sanction now, so it's as good as any other solution.
> Furthermore, unlike -meH, it keeps the main verb as main verb. -meH may
> be slightly less clumsy, but over the past year we've become quite used
> to lo'taHvIS, and it cannot be considered bad Klingon now to use it.
Yep.
As for the rest of your post, which you considered to
be easily interpreted as a flame, I thought you were quite
civil. The simple truth is that of all the self-proclaimed
Klingon experts, there is no one else from whom I've learned
less, nor with whom I've disagreed more often. If I comment
more on this, I will probably fall to worse degrees of flame
than you did. I do not dislike him. I don't know him well
enough to dislike him. I just don't like most of what I've seen
him write about the language.
charghwI'