tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Sep 13 12:24:33 1994

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Void where Prohibited



 in> From: "William H. Martin" <ur-valhalla!jm.acs.virginia.edu!whm2m>
 in> Subject: Void where Prohibited

 > What do I do for "where"?  I thought {nuqDaq}, but even using the 
 > example from Krankor's HolQeD article about "How can I own it?" 
 > gave me no help.

 in> Okay, maybe it is time to take another step back. This sentence
 in> really means, "If this kind of offer is prohibited by your laws
 in> in your area, then we do not offer this to you."

I was thinking along those lines, but never wrote it out like that.  I think I
lost my train of thought because of that failure.  Also, I think I compressed
a bit *too* much when I did.  I know that I wanted to use "offer", but
couldn't find a suitable replacement in TKD.

 > Hatbogh botlu'pu': Someone has probibited it where it is illegal.

 in> This could as easily mean, "It, which is illegal, is
 in> prohibited." That doesn't tell us much. We could have figured
 in> that out on our own. {{:)>

Umm.  I *knew* it wasn't what I wanted.
 
 in> venglIjDaq Hotchugh Dochvam vaj SoHvaD 'oH wIlay'Qo'.

 in> "If this is illegal in your city, then we won't promise it to
 in> you." Of course, I'd be happier if I had a noun form for {lay'}

:-)

 in> so I could say, "If this promise is illegal...", but I'm one of
 in> those conservative folks in the {-ghach} controversy, so I'm

May have new insight on that one shortly, huh?  I can hardly wait!

 in> stuck. I similarly can't say, "If it is illegal that we promise
 in> this to you..." because that uses the generic "it" to sneak in
 in> a Sentence As Subject (since "it" refers to the following
 in> sentence), and that's not acceptable, either.

Right...  I often find myself trying to do just that.

 in> I don't see an easy way to say this well. Perhaps my attempt
 in> will open you to a better suggestion you may yet develop
 in> yourself?

I think that I would replace "city" with something more general, "district"
perhaps - offers that would be "Void where prohibited" are generally void in
larger areas than cities.  I also would change "won't" to "can't".

yoSlIjDaq Hotchugh Dochvam vaj SoHvaD 'oH wIlay'laHbe'.

It's not the tidy little phrase I had hoped for (and it won't work in Shawn's
origin line either), but at least it's as correct as possible.

But then, later on:

 uu> From: "William H. Martin" <ur-valhalla!jm.acs.virginia.edu!whm2m>
 uu> Okay, my SECOND attempt:

 uu> Dochvam pIlay'laHbe' ra'chugh chutmeylIj vaj wIlay'Ha'.

 uu> "If your laws command that we can't promise you this thing, then
 uu> we unpromise it."

OOOOH!  I really don't think you needed to rephrase the whole {-chugh} part,
but I do like the "unpromise" bit!

Qob
 
... Line noise provided by the FBI's BBS monitoring service. 



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