tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Thu Oct 13 09:56:16 1994

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Re: "Music Student"



>From: Susan Farmer <[email protected]>
>Date: Thu, 13 Oct 1994 06:55:23 -0400

>>From: [email protected] (Jason K. Green)
>>
>>How does 
>>
>>chuSwI'ghojwI'
>>
>>work for 
>>
>>music student
>>
>>literally it's student of things that make noise
>>
>>Any suggestions are appreciated.
>>
>>Jason Green
>>chuSwI'ghojwI'
>>(if it's OK)
>>
>Before I found out that Okrand had given us a word for music (which I can't
>remember off the top of my head) *I* used {belchuS}  or was that {chuSbel}
>i.e., Beautiful Noise, for music when I translated Minstrel Boy.

I think your coinage was something with chuS 'IH ('IH means "beautiful";
"bel" means "be pleased"; I suspect you're getting confused with words like
Frence "belle."

The word for "musicalk sound" as given by Okrand in HolQeD is "QoQ."

But there's an important point to be said about coinages like yours.  It's
a very tempting and dangerous trap.  It's extremely easy to create words
like that, which I call "hindisght words."  They make eminent sense in
hindsight, but only in hindsight.  Someone else coined "mu' 'IH" for
poetry, and there's one I'm still arguing about with Nick.  The problem is
that they make complete sense to you, since you invented them and are
looking at them in hindsight.  But to someone who sees them the first time,
they're completely opaque.  What seems to you to be a clear way of
describing something, by its salient feature, may not be at all its salient
feature to someone else.  Of course, there's room for coinage to an extent,
but words like these are pretty hindsight-ish to me.

>tevram

~mark



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